The Man in the Queue

Inspector Alan Grant, Book 1

De: Josephine Tey

Narrado por: Karen Cass

#1 in the Inspector Alan Grant series.

Inspector Alan Grant searches for the identity of a man killed in the line at a theater and for the identity of the killer—whom no one saw.

A long line had formed for the standing-room-only section of the Woffington Theatre. London’s favorite musical comedy of the past two years was finishing its run at the end of the week. Suddenly, the line began to move, forming a wedge before the open doors as hopeful theatergoers nudged their way forward. But one man, his head sunk down upon his chest, slowly sank to his knees and then, still more slowly, keeled over on his face. Thinking he had fainted, a spectator moved to help, but recoiled in horror from what lay before him: the man in the queue had a small silver dagger neatly plunged into his back. With the wit and guile that have made Inspector Grant a favorite of mystery fans, the inspector sets about discovering just how a murder occurred among so many witnesses, none of whom saw a thing.

Public Domain (P)2023 SNR Audio

Highly recommended

A good book by a decent reader. I do recommend it even though the ending was a little suspect.

Twister, Anyone?!

If you want a story with incredible yet logical twists and turns, exciting police chases, and thrilling psychology, this is the book for you!! For me, the final twist wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped, but it certainly tied it all up together well enough to convince Inspector Grant.

Police procedural with a chase

I like the writing style of Tey very much. I wasn’t overjoyed with the denouement, but the process of reaching it wasn’t without relish. I do think that the chase or hunt for the fugitive from (presumably) justice was too protracted, rather stretching the point of being a red herring too far for plausibility. Even so, as I said before, she certainly had a way with words.

P.S. I would have liked a male voice detailing the loads of introspection by the main male investigator. There are so many audiobooks with this sort of clash (both ways). That said, the narration is good.

Well read, unusual case.

Tey started her Grant series with distilled meditation on what a criminal case is supposed to be about: discerning the truth based on evidence.

Disappointment

After listening to The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar, both of which were narrated by Carole Boyd and which I enjoyed a lot, this was a disappointment. I'm not sure if the narration mightn't have influenced my review of the story because I actually was so annoyed by the narrator that I stopped with 2 hours to go. How to describe her ...? I think it's the difference between reading or giving a talk and performing, and she's only a mediocre reader. The only other available narrator for Tey's books is Jennifer Dixon and I didn't like the sample of her performance, so I may have reached the end of Tey on Audible. Too bad.