After a reading of The Daughter of Time. I felt I wanted to explore Tey's detective fiction technique in a classic format.
First Edition Cover, 1948
An audio book; I find to my amusement that it is read by Carol Boyd, she of Lynda Snell.
Marion Sharpe and her mother seem an unlikely duo to be found on the wrong side of the law. Quiet and ordinary, they have led a peaceful and unremarkable life at their country home, The Franchise. Unremarkable that is, until the police turn up with a demure young woman on their doorstep. Not only does Betty Kane accuse them of kidnap and abuse, she can back up her claim with a detailed description of the attic room in which she was kept, right down to the crack in its round window.
But there's something about Betty Kane's story that doesn't quite add up. Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard is stumped. And it takes Robert Blair, local solicitor turned amateur detective, to solve the mystery that lies at the heart of The Franchise Affair...
What I thought: A neat bit of detective writing with no resort to the artifices available to authors writing today, with all the available modern devices, techniques and such advances in the use of DNA and other evidence that is unwittingly left by perpetrators of crime. Tey is upmarket Agatha Christie and I look forward to reading more titles in this genre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Franchise_Affair
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