I enjoyed this book very much. It is the second book in the Inspector Grant series and features the death of a very talented, popular movie star. There are few clues at the scene, since she was drowned at a secluded beach and the tide has obliterated anything of use. One suspect delivers himself up immediately, but claims to be innocent. The evidence, however circumstantial, all points to him and he is arrested. The quickness and cleanliness of the arrest pleases everyone: the press, the public, and the constabulary all the way up to the Commissioner. Grant also acknowledges that it is “a good enough case”. But. Grant has a niggling feeling, based on a small anomaly. Why can’t he let this go, as everyone advises? Is it just his liking for the suspect getting in the way of the facts? Tey does a brilliant job of outlining the competing forces pulling at Grant: the conviction of his superiors about the solidity of the case versus his “feeling”. This book also has a very interesting character in Erica Burgoyne, the 17-year-old daughter of the Chief Constable. At points the book breaks briefly to tell the story from her point of view before returning to Grant’s pursuits. She is unconventional, forthright, and has a keen intellect. I am hoping to see more of her in subsequent books!In each of Tey’s books that I’ve read, she can in a few strokes give a realistic and detailed picture of a section of English society: touts at the racetrack, shopkeepers opening up on a Monday morning, London theatre-goers. The social satire is gentle but hits true even today. In one instance, she makes sharp observations about the symbiotic relationship between the sensationalist celebrity-obsessed press and its readers. Here is an excerpt, where a reporter (Jammy Hopkins) laments being chastised for printing hearsay:“Jammy consigned them all to perdition…What did the Yard want to take it like that for? Everyone knew that what you wrote in a paper was just eye-wash. When it wasn’t bilge-water. If you stopped being dramatic over little tuppenny no-account things, people might begin to suspect that they were no-account, and then they’d stop buying papers….You’d got to provide emotions for all those moribund wage-earners who were too tired or too dumb to feel anything on their own behalf. If you couldn’t freeze their blood, then you could sell them a good sob or two.” (p.172)In this novel, Tey shows the dogged, unglamorous work that policemen have to do to track down clues and gather evidence. What could be dry in other hands is smooth in Tey’s and does not slow down the story; rather, it gives a deeper dimension to Grant’s character.Though it is second in the Grant series, this can be read out of order from the first book (Man in the Queue) with no harm.
A popular actress is found dead on a beach, and Inspector Grant has to wade through a list of suspects to find her murderer. A Shilling for Candles is a typical old style novel in the best tradition of British murder mysteries. This book definitely has the charm and was fun to read. There were some excellent humorous moments in the book, and some shrewd insights into the class system of the times. You cannot help liking Grant because while he did go with the flow, he did recognise and understand how things stood. Some of the characters were very well developed, while others sort of made an appearance, then vanished. There were too many plot lines and while some of them were taken to an appropriate end, others just petered off. The story was not linear and went into wild tangents, which were later dropped. Some story lines sprung up from nowhere and then petered off again. This is not very good writing by any standards.The worst part of the book was the denouement. I am a huge fan of murder mysteries where all the clues are given to the reader, who can then guess around. I do NOT like stories where the detective reads something at the last minute and in the very next scene is arresting someone with information that the reader does not possess. It was no real conclusion for me since the clue did not lead to this person. While you could stretch belief a little to accept the solution, the character of the murderer was never developed well enough nor was the background for the actual murder.That said, it was still a good enough read. Recommended, but don't look for perfection.
What do You think about A Shilling For Candles (1998)?
Read this first a long time ago along with all of Tey and must've gone through it too fast. Now after a long time I picked it up again and found find a subtle, beautiful British mystery with terrific real characters--everyone, including those who get a page or less--a wonderful detective, and extremely readable, refreshing prose. I loved Erica and Tisdall especially, but the most well-rounded character is the victim, who is dead at the beginning of the book; by the end, you feel you know her. That's an amazing trick for any mystery, or any book.
—Dave
Josephine Tey is one of my favorite mystery authors--easily top five. This isn't a favorite book among her works though. Sadly, she only wrote eight. The introduction to the latest editions by Robert Barnard name The Daughter of Time, The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar as the standouts; I'd add Miss Pym Disposes to that list of her best. A Shilling for Candles is only her second book and her two earliest books are indeed imo her weakest, though I like A Shilling for Candles better than her first mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, The Man in the Queue. The strength of most Teys, including this one, isn't in a tidily plotted whodunnit with clues giving you a fair chance at the solution and a particularly clever twist. The introduction points particularly to A Shilling for Candles in that regard as an example, saying that Tey was not interested "in that kind of game." So what are this novel's particular pleasures? Well, her prose for one. Lively, full of wry insights, humor, an apt way with descriptions. Her characters for another, and in this case I definitely thought this cast was more memorable than in her first Grant novel. There is an odious reporter, an eccentric astrologer, egotistical show business people and the delightful Erica Burgoyne, teen detective, who arguably proves better at the business than Inspector Grant. Grant isn't along Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or even Lord Peter Wimsey lines. He laments that himself at one point that he's "just a hard-working, well-meaning ordinarily intelligent detective." Barnard accuses Tey of anti-Semitism in his introduction, but doesn't cite examples, and I have to wonder if it's he just doesn't get that Grant isn't meant to be a Holmes or Poirot. I don't think we're to take his beliefs as that of the author. He's fallible. It may be that anti-Jewish lines are excised from the later or American editions, or that I have yet to find them in my reread of Tey with 3 more novels to go. Unless I missed it because it's encoded as "Eastern European" in this book. But I find it telling that in the first two books, every time Grant expresses a prejudice and makes assumptions based upon it, he's proven wrong--and the character of Eastern European origin in this book doesn't fit any negative stereotype. It could be I'm giving Tey too much credit for being subtle. Maybe. But I suspect Barnard doesn't give Tey enough credit. I think what I found most poignant in this book though was the portrait of the murder victim we can only get to know through others--film actress Christine Clay. What emerges is a very sympathetic portrait, a vivid one both of her and the prices of celebrity.
—Lisa (Harmonybites)
What will I do when I have read all the decent English-language mystery novels in the world. It's been a very long time since I read anything by Josephine Tey but I see that I will have to read some more soon. This was an entertaining story with a dead celebrity actress, her husband the duke, and all her other hangers-on. Eventually I will read all my reviews of these mystery stories that get marketed to middle-aged women. Then I will be able to list the characteristics of the genre, such as attractive and often upper-crust detectives, gutsy women, dysfunctional families, resort (or close to it) settings, and young (and sometimes middle-aged) love. This one had the gutsy woman, the dysfunctional family, the beach, young children who evoke your sympathy, and the young love. In the Bleak Midwinter had the attractive detective, the gutsy woman, two dysfunctional families, the Adirondacks, an abandoned infant, and young love.
—Jocelyn
