Golden Age of Detective Fiction

(Originally titled Killer in the Crowd under her pseudonym Gordon Daviot)

A young man stands in the queue for one of the final West End performances of Didn’t You Know? starring Ray Markable. As the crowd jostles forward to enter the theatre a solitary man slumps forward, unmoving. During the surge to get to their seats the unknown man has been stabbed by a stiletto dagger.

Despite a thorough questioning, Inspector Grant struggles to find a motive among the people who were standing near him who also say they saw nothing suspicious. No one knows who the dead man is and their no identifying papers in his person or clothes.

The identity of the man has stalled and Inspector Alan Grant has no leads until an envelope arrives at the police station specifically addressed to Grant. Inside is a note asking for the man to be cremated and payment for the service.

Inspector Grant decides to reinterview the people in the queue, and a woman standing behind the unidentified man swears that there was a foreigner in the crowd who wasn’t there when Grant did his interviews. With these slim clues, the mystery man is finally identified as timed book maker Albert Sorrell, who lived in Nottingham with another bookmaker named Lamont in a seedy boardinghouse, who is identified as being in the crowd waiting for the show.

However, Lamont has skipped town and is no longer in Nottingham, sod further investigation takes Grant to Lamont’s remote hideaway in Scotland. After a strenuous effort, Grant apprehends the suspect but begins to harbor doubts as he escorts him back to London to face murder charges.

Despite voicing his concerns to his superior, Grant’s reservations are dismissed. His subsequent attempts to explore alternative suspects prove fruitless, leaving him on the brink of admitting defeat. However, just as all seems lost, an unexpected informant emerges to shed light on the truth behind the stabbing in the queue.

The Review

Have you ever read a book and just gone, huh, that was a book I read. That’s how I feel about The Man in the Queue. I was moderately engaged while reading it, but everything I had just read floated away the second I closed the covers.

I liked the opening sequence where the people were waiting to see amazing actress Ray Markable and her incredible impressions during her performance and how dynamic and rowdy the crowd was, however none of these characters are important to the story.

It took a long time to uncover the identity of Albert Sorrell, which was fine because then the reader could better connect with the investigator and their quirks and investigative powers. Inspector Alan Grant’s defining traits that I learned during this time were that he really liked bacon and eggs, he’s a staid investigator, and he occasionally chafes against the rigid structure of police command. I just never found him a compelling character, his blandness really bogged down the slow burn of the investigation for me.

The Man in the Queue did pick up a bit when we are finally on the trail of Lamont and the desperate and deadly ends he goes to cover his tracks. This culminates in a great action scene that brings back the momentum of the beginning of the book.

However, once Lamont is in custody, Inspector Grant is slowly presented with lots of minor inconsistencies that niggle at him, and he is faced with stuffing down his feelings and keeping the company line that Sorrell is the criminal or to keep investigating.

I thought Inspector Grant’s moral dilemma was a very interesting twist and could add a lot of depth to his character and would provide some social commentary about the police force- but that never materialized. He voices his concerns and is rebuffed, but when he opens a private inquiry into Albert Sorrell’s death, that doesn’t cause any issues, and he’s allowed to play his own hand.

The first thing Inspector Grant does in chasing the actual killer is go back and grill Mrs. Everett, Lamont and Sorrell’s landlady. He suspects that she is hiding something from him. He breaks down her defenses, and the whole story comes full circle with Ray Markable at the center of the mystery.

There was much mucking around until Inspector Grant started grilling Ray Markable, which involved several suspenseful tete-a-tete conversations. A fencing with words and wit, which Inspector Grant eventually wins. Again, this was a great series of scenes.

My real issue with this book is that there are five great scenes with suspenseful and snappy dialogue surrounded by a lot of dull connective tissue, which Inspector Grant is supposed to carry. He is often colorless and bland on his own. He seems sharp-witted and incredibly deft at criminal investigation but needs someone else to reveal his personality. I wish he had a Watson-like character to better hone his traits and keep him at the fore of the story.

The Man in the Queue has moments of brilliance but also long stretches where nothing is happening, and none of the characters are engaging enough to keep the story from languishing. It’s a book that moves in fits and starts. I liked it, but it doesn’t stand out at all.

Josephine Tey Biography

Josephine Tey was the pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh, a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. She was born on July 25, 1896, in Inverness, Scotland, and died on February 13, 1952, in London, England.

Tey’s early life and education are not extensively documented, but it is known that she attended various schools in Inverness before studying physical training at the Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham. After completing her studies, she worked as a physical education teacher for several years.

In addition to her teaching career, Tey began writing plays, novels, and short stories. She adopted the pseudonym “Josephine Tey” in 1936 when her first mystery novel, “The Man in the Queue,” was published. The novel introduced her recurring character, Inspector Alan Grant, who would appear in several of her subsequent works.

Tey’s most famous novel is “The Daughter of Time” (1951), in which Inspector Grant, laid up in a hospital bed, investigates the historical mystery of Richard III’s involvement in the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. This novel is often cited as one of the greatest mystery novels of all time and has contributed significantly to the ongoing debate about Richard III’s reputation.

Other notable works by Josephine Tey include “A Shilling for Candles” (1936), “Miss Pym Disposes” (1946), and “Brat Farrar” (1949). She also wrote under the name Gordon Daviot, producing successful plays such as “Richard of Bordeaux” (1932), which was performed on Broadway.

Despite her literary success, Tey lived a reclusive life, and little is known about her personal affairs. She never married and had no children. Tey passed away in 1952, leaving a legacy of influential and highly regarded mystery novels that continue to captivate readers today.