The Man in the Queue

Inspector Alan Grant, Book 1

By: Josephine Tey

Narrated by: Karen Cass

Book #1 in the Inspector Alan Grant series.

The Man in the Queue is the first book in Josephine Tey’s series of detective novels featuring Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard.

In 1920s London, the packed queue for the city’s most popular musical comedy is growing impatient. When the theatre doors open at last and the crowd surges forward, a man falls to the ground, stabbed with a small silver blade. The dead man carries no identification and none of those near him in the queue noticed him until he collapsed, nor did they appear to have any motive for killing him.

Inspector Alan Grant is called in to unravel the mystery, and as he delves deeper into the identity of the victim, he uncovers a tangled web of suspects and secrets, and his investigation culminates in a breathless manhunt leading from London all the way to the Scottish highlands and back, before at last a truth is revealed that shocks even the canny detective himself.

Josephine Tey (1896-1952) was a renowned author and one of the most celebrated figures in detective fiction. Tey initially pursued a career in theatre, writing plays before shifting her focus to novels, and her writing is characterised by psychological depth, strong character development, and a subversion of traditional crime fiction norms. Her most notable works include The Daughter of Time, Brat Farrar, and The Franchise Affair, and despite her relatively small output, her influence is significant, inspiring future generations of mystery writers.

Public Domain (P)2023 SNR Audio

Highly recommended

A good book by a decent reader. I do recommend it even though the ending was a little suspect.

Twister, Anyone?!

If you want a story with incredible yet logical twists and turns, exciting police chases, and thrilling psychology, this is the book for you!! For me, the final twist wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped, but it certainly tied it all up together well enough to convince Inspector Grant.

Police procedural with a chase

I like the writing style of Tey very much. I wasn’t overjoyed with the denouement, but the process of reaching it wasn’t without relish. I do think that the chase or hunt for the fugitive from (presumably) justice was too protracted, rather stretching the point of being a red herring too far for plausibility. Even so, as I said before, she certainly had a way with words.

P.S. I would have liked a male voice detailing the loads of introspection by the main male investigator. There are so many audiobooks with this sort of clash (both ways). That said, the narration is good.

Well read, unusual case.

Tey started her Grant series with distilled meditation on what a criminal case is supposed to be about: discerning the truth based on evidence.

Disappointment

After listening to The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar, both of which were narrated by Carole Boyd and which I enjoyed a lot, this was a disappointment. I'm not sure if the narration mightn't have influenced my review of the story because I actually was so annoyed by the narrator that I stopped with 2 hours to go. How to describe her ...? I think it's the difference between reading or giving a talk and performing, and she's only a mediocre reader. The only other available narrator for Tey's books is Jennifer Dixon and I didn't like the sample of her performance, so I may have reached the end of Tey on Audible. Too bad.