two non-fiction works and the recipient of an Escalator Award from the Arts Council England. Her debut novel, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey—one of the leading authors of Britain's age of crime-writing. The newest novel in the series is Sorry for the Dead. Her research for the books has included many conversations with people who lived through the period and who knew Josephine Tey well, most notably Sir John Gielgud.At the Guardian, Upson tagged ten favorite golden age detective novels, including:
To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey (1950)Read about the other entries on the list.
Here Tey demonstrates an extraordinary understanding of the psychology of a killer – not a crazed figure of evil, but an ordinary person, who, through extremes of love or obsession, might decide that someone no longer deserves to live. “I’ve done a lot of good solid hating in my time,” the author once admitted to a friend, “and the curious thing is that although I did nothing, the people I hated all went satisfyingly to the bad.” This book is an unsettling, ingenious reminder of what we’re all capable of.
--Marshal Zeringue
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