Shot With Crimson by Nicola Upson

#11 Josephine Tey Mysteries

352 pages

Publisher: Faber & Faber

Publishing date: November 2, 2023

 

Blurb

 I will never understand why murder is considered such a lowbrow speciality in Hollywood.

September, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock's Rebecca.

Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier - a trail that echoes Rebecca's timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder.

 

Review

 “The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.”

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier

While I have to admit that I may have missed a title or two, I can honestly say that I have loved Nicola Upson’s Josephine Tey mysteries since I first read An Expert in Murder thirteen years (13!) ago. Right from the start I’ve loved Upson’s attention to detail, gentle voice, vivid descriptions, clever introduction of real historical figures, and perfectly plotted mysteries and Shot With Crimson was filled with all those qualities.

This isn’t the first Josephine Tey mystery featuring Alfred and Alma Hitchcock and fortunately, the first one, Fear in the Sunlight, is among the previous titles I have read (click the title for my thoughts on that book). The quote below, taken from that older review could have been written today for Shot With Crimson.

 In fact, there were times when I had to remind myself that I was reading a work of fiction featuring real historical figures. There is such detail in the descriptions in this story that it is quite possible to believe that all of it really happened.

Shot With Crimson starts with a prologue set in an English country house during WWI. The house is used as a hospital for wounded soldiers, and we are witness to a six-year-old Daphne du Maurier undertaking but not completing a task set by James, a medical orderly there.

Fast forward to the start of WWII and James is now a special effects artist working on Rebecca for Alfred Hitchcock. He is back at the estate where he worked two decades ago and discoveries about what happened then lead to him lashing out in the worst possible way.

When we meet James again, he is on his way back to America on the same boat as Josephine Tey who is on her way to visit her lover Martha in Hollywood. He is obviously distressed, and Josephine reaches out in the hope of calming him.

Meanwhile, back in England Josephine’s friend DCI Archie Penrose is sent to the country house to investigate the murder of a woman there.

Finding themselves on different sides of the Atlantic, Archie and Josephine are unaware that they are both dealing with the same case and, as they both dig deeper, the issue only becomes more complicated until it leads to its final, rather sad, conclusion.

For a long time, I thought this was the kind of story where the writer might have revealed too much information at the start of the book. Since I had read books by Nicola Upson before, I should have known better. Layer upon layer of secrets still waited to be exposed and absolutely nothing was quite as it seemed at first. In other words, this is a very cleverly plotted mystery.

Apart from Alfred Hitchcock, his wife Alma, and his daughter Pat, quite a few other famous people feature in this story: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, producer David O. Selznick, and du Maurier herself also make brief appearances. For film buffs, there was also quite a bit of detailed information about the making of a film in Hollywood in the late 1930s.

I loved the parallels between Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and the mystery. They added to the sense of realism and were all too plausible. As I said before, I had to remind myself occasionally that what I was reading was fiction.

Overall, I loved this book. The plot fascinated me, the writing was smooth, the conversations flowed naturally, and the mystery was intriguing, leaving me truly baffled before providing a very satisfying, be it devasting solution.

My final thought is less related to the book than the times we live in. Given how long it takes to write a book, edit it, and get it published, there is no way Nicola Upson could have known how shockingly appropriate the quote below would be for the times and events we live through right now.

 We think we’ve learnt our lessons from the past, but we never really get beyond an eye for an eye.

 

Sorry for the Dead by Nicola Upson

 

Josephine Tey Mystery #8

350 pages

Blurb

Summer, 1915: a young woman falls to her death at Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs. But was it an accident?

Twenty years later, Josephine Tey is faced with the accusation that it was murder, and that she was complicit in the crime. Can she clear her name and uncover the truth, exposing the darkest secrets of that apparently idyllic summer?

 

Review                        

It’s been years since I last read a Josephine Tey mystery by Nicola Upson. I loved the first three when I discovered them and I’m not sure why I stopped reading them, but it was obviously a mistake. When I saw this latest title on the shelves in the library where I work, I picked it up immediately and that was a great decision.

The timeline in this story is spread out over 33 years with the first death happening in 1915 and the second in 1948 and involves a lot more than ‘just’ two suspicious deaths. And, as much as I love mysteries, especially well plotted ones like this, I have to admit that the secondary plot (if you can call it that) intrigued me more. I’ll get back to that.

In 1915 Josephine travels to the Sussex Downs to help supervising a group of schoolgirls who are spending their summer working on a farm run by Harriet and George, two women with a passion for horticulture and also for each other. The true nature of their relationship is a closely guarded secret, but when Josephine arrives on the farm, she soon recognises it for what it is, and she isn’t the only one. One of the girls has made an anonymous phone call to accuse the women in charge of Charleston Farmhouse of indecent behaviour. When that girl subsequently dies under suspicious circumstances, Josephine isn’t the only one suspecting foul play, but the subsequent inquest rules it death by misadventure, and that should have been the end of it.

Twenty years later a newspaper article brings the events from 1915 back to the fore while implying that the girl was murdered. and that Josephine is somehow implicated in the deed or the covering up thereof. Josephine wouldn’t be Josephine if she took the accusation lying down and it isn’t long before she’s investigating what really happened. Her quest reunites her with several people she hasn’t seen for in over twenty years and brings back memories of a special but also painful and confusing time of her life.

Which brings me to the sub-plot. The two women who own and run Charleston Farmhouse are in a relationship. They are very discrete because they know the world at large doesn’t approve but living in close quarters with a group of girls on the cups of adulthood means that their secret isn’t safe.

Josephine falls for and starts a relationship with Jeannie, a young woman her own age she meets in Sussex. As everything falls apart after the girl dies, Josephine experiences first-hand how the world feels about women who love women, and it pushes her to make a hurtful decision.

For me, that was the real story in this book. Since it also plays a huge role in the mystery and its resolution, you could call it the theme of this novel. How much are we willing to endure for love? How much are we willing to put at risk? Is love enough when the rest of the world turns its back to you? How far are we willing to go to protect those we love? In fact, book could just as easily have been called ‘The Things We Do for Love’. Because when pushed enough, love, in all its wonderous and obsessive forms, can make us do the most amazing and shocking things.

Long story short; Sorry for the Dead is a wonderful book containing a fascinating mystery and an equally interesting background story. Well plotted and a very smooth read, this story was a joy to read.