loved this story. The panic attacks that afflict Alan Grant are just so affecting, His desperate need for time off work and his retreat to the Scottish Highlands are the catalyst for an investigation of the death of a passenger on the same overnight train.
Grant inadvertedly picks up a newspaper and later finds it belongs to the deceased, A scribble in the blank Stop Press section intrigues him: a line of verse that mentions singing sands and talking beasts,
It appears the deceased met his end due to a fall while drunk, But Grant is not quite satisfied,
On impulse he goes to Cladda, a fictional island in the Hebrides to try to discover the reason for the deceased's seeming obsession with the place.
He also puts an ad in several London papers in an attempt to discover the source of the verse,
Gradually he sorts through the misdirections of an arrogant, entitled narcissist who believes he has committed the perfect murder,
Perhaps my least favourite Tey and that's primarily because much of the first half is concerned with Grant's fishing holiday in Scotland, The characterisation is strong, as ever, and Tey is probably the best prose stylist of the GA all the same, we get introduced to a dead man in the opening chapter but the real investigation doesn't gather speed till about midway through.
Once Grant is back in London my interest perked up, All the same, this is eminently transparent in terms of mystery, Great atmosphere, though, developed characters, and a sharp style make this still worth a read:,stars. Excellent mystery and atmospheric settings in Scotland, I will be reading more of the intrepid Inspector Alan Grant, In my opinion, this is the best mystery written by Josephine Tey, It is sad for me to think of it being published posthumously, Every word and its placement was chosen with brilliance as well as a compelling drive to confirm life and humanity in all its truth, good and bad.
Pretty lofty thinking, eh Darn, but I am afraid to pick up my next book as nothing will compare to this one, I did check this out from my library in pristine paperback condition from Touchstone, I only mention this as my excuse for not having read this book earlier when long ago I was reading Tey from some rather old and worn books.
I am fairly certain I was afraid to touch the edition available to me of The Singing Sands, Rather wonderful that fresh copies were published, and now I know which version to order so I can read many times over in future, Also rather wonderful that some goodreads subscribers brought my attention back to Tey,
Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is the main character in this book, He is forced to take a holiday due to "overwork" per his doctor, The struggle to remain in his FirstClass sleeping compartment on the overnight train due to claustrophobia was a horrid start, Then he has to inform the porter that the man he is shaking and trying to wake is dead, "He dropped the two suitcases on the platform and stood there, . . and wished that it was possible to die temporarily, They were all wrong about hell, he thought, Hell wasn't a nice cosy place where you fried, Hell was a great cold echoing cave where there was neither past nor future a black, echoing desolation, Hell was concentrated essence of a winter morning after a sleepless night of selfdistaste, "
Thus starts his journey to the Highlands for a rest with relatives, It is a wonderful tale of restoration and discovery leading to a very unusual murder plot highly intelligent and original! The mystery is subsidiary and unfortunately the solution relies on a letter of exposition from the perpetrator, so that was a bit disappointing.
. . but
Josephine Tey is simply one of the best writers I've ever come across, I'm sad that I'm almost finished with her books, because they are RICH in imagery and language, One feels merged with Alan Grant as a character, able to explore all the nooks and crannies of his mind,
In this installment, Inspector Alan Grant is ordered by his physician to take some time away, He's dealing with nervous exhaustion that takes the form of very bad claustrophobia, He goes to his friends in rural Scotland yay! Scotland! But on the railroad journey, he has a fleeting encounter with an evidently accidental death, He finds himself unable to forget this circumstance, and keeps returning to it in his mind, spurred on by a scrap of poetry found in the dead man's possession.
As I said before, the mystery itself is not an urgent, cliffhanging puzzle, It's something he turns over and over in his mind while fishing on the river and spending time with his friends during his restcure, It moves him to go even further afield to the island of Cladda, the place of singing sands, But the real meat of the book is in Alan's thoughts and the slow process of recovering his nerves and sanity, The characters are beautifully drawn and all interesting, The beasts that talk,
The streams that stand,
The stones that walk,
The singing sands,
That guard the way to Paradise
This cryptic verse sends him on a hunt for the murderer of a fellow passenger on a train he is taking to Scotland.
He is travelling there to recover from a nervous breakdown, where he will stay with friends, This verse takes him to the Hebrides, to France, and to London, A classic of the genre, I've read only one other of Tey's mysteries, but consider this the better of the twounexpected twists and turns galore,
Most highly recommended, 'The Singing Sands' is most assuredly a classic page turning puzzler chock full of twists and turns, adventure, cryptic messages, nefarious characters, mistaken identities, and exotic intrigue.
This novel is a classic 'whodunnit' from a true 'mistress of the golden age', Josephine Tey, It is a page turner so well described and so well plotted, that the reader almost forgets he/ she is reading, and not watching the flicker of celluloid on the big screen! Excellent!! Go see it I mean 'read it'!! Apparently published after Josephine Teys death, its quite a slow developing book.
Language very much of its time, quite formal but not a bad story, I had looked forward to the Outer Hebrides references but they weren't very flattering!,
Published posthumously, I'd like to think that Ms Tey would have revised this novel if she had lived,
Read it years ago, I am a HUGE Josephine Tey fan, I've read all her books, wish she had written more, I need to reread and write some proper reviews, but I know this one is a five,
Because there is a lot to be admired about this story in which a burnt out Nervous breakdown PTSD Inspector Grant goes on sick leave.
Grant's mental struggles are sympathetically described and this part of the novel works really well as is the description of the death of a young man in a train's department and Grant being on hand for the body's discovery.
As beautifully written as some of the narrative was, the Scottish part of the story rambled a bit for me,although some of it was very witty.
Wee Archie was wielding a shepherd's crook that, as Tommy remarked later, no shepherd would be found dead with, and he was wearing a kilt that no Highlander would dream of being found alive in.
The story really picked up with the arrival of and it becomes nearer to a true detective story.
Unfortunately there is also a which I think takes a little away from some of the detective work.
So this one is a flawed gem, Certainly far better than some of her early work like sitelinkThe Man in the Queue, but not up to her best efforts sitelinkThe Daughter of Time / Brat Farrarsitelink
sitelink com/view/carolshess
I actually bought most of her books, now to go find them!
He comes back from the edge!
"Grant was so filled with the pleasure that ferreting out information always provided for him, that they were running through the outer suburbs of Scoone before he remembered that he was in a car.
That he was shut into a car, . . "
This is a sensational read and my absolute favorite Inspector Alan Grant mystery, It also happens to be the final Inspector Grant mystery and Josephine Tey's final book, having been found among her papers and published posthumously, While not as technically perfect as Daughter Of Time, that's
of no consequence at all, . . In my opinion The Singing Sands is one of Tey's crowning achievements, certainly concluding her body of work on an impressive high note,
The Singing Sands is more than a police procedural, though it also is that, It's a police procedural conducted by an experienced, acclaimed detective driven in spite of himself, and in spite of all official pronouncements to investigate an accidental death as a crime.
For anyone who's ever read an Inspector Alan Grant mystery and complained that Grant's character is onedimensional this final Inspector Alan Grant novel is for you, It's a detective story, and a phenomenal one at that, but, oh, it's so much more, . .
Here the inimitable Inspector Alan Grant is on a medically mandated leave, He's taking "involuntary vacation" from detecting, so we get a rare chance to see him far from his vocational element: back in the Highlands stomping ground of his Scottish childhood, hip deep in waders fishing the lochs, in the bosom of family and old friends all while grappling with a crippling and humiliating case of potentially careerending claustrophobia.
The typically unflappable Alan Grant is a mess, . . And, as Grant begins his leave, while exiting his train he happens upon a dead man in Compartment B Seven, Something in the face of the man affects him deeply, haunting him, The death is determined accidental, and yet, . . A clue.
The beasts that talk,
The streams that stand,
The stones that walk,
The singing sands,
That guard the way To Paradise,
In this book, Alan Grant embarks on a voyage of selfdiscovery, and the reader is gifted a frontrow seat, with access to an Alan Grant whom Tey has never before revealed: the inner man's memories and perceptions, his hopes and fears, loves lost and found, new loves presenting themselves to him.
Grant examines and secondguesses himself and the course of his entire life, but because he IS Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, it seems he needs "a case" to serve as a vehicle for this process of selfexamination he simply doesn't know any other way to BE.
"Who Grant IS" is inextricably enmeshed with "how he works, " So we follow Grant as he conducts his unofficial investigation into the death of the man in Compartment B Seven, simultaneously undertaking a parallel journey to uncover the answers to some important personal questions questions which Alan Grant, detective, knows no other way to ask or answer.
What an amazing journey it turns out to be,
In one of my favorite parts of the book, Grant, spending a week following up a lead in his Compartment B Seven death inquiry, stays at The Cladda Hotel in the Western Isles of the Outer Hebrides of Gaelic Scotland the gateway to Tír Na Nóg, The Country of the Young, or Gaelic heaven.
There, he discovers those islands to be a place far closer to hell than heaven, especially in the "off" season, He also discovers that this particular version of hell seems to suit him rather well doing wonders for both his constitution and prospects, psychologically and physically! Quite simply, the longer Grant is there, the jollier and more resilient he becomes! This part of the book had me laughing so much, and so hard, I had to take a break.
I found myself laughing SO out loud while reading, I felt like a barking seal, . .
The ersatz "case" which Grant pursues is, in fact, revealed to BE a case his detective's instincts have not failed him even in this, his time of selfdoubt.
The death in Compartment B Seven proves, if nothing else, QUITE suspicious, To find out just how suspicious, you'll need to read the book, As this tale is gradually untangled, its complexity will make your head SPIN!!!
And yes, in this Inspector Grant mystery all is revealed, If only I could give it more than five, .