*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Josephine Tey (real name Elizabeth MacKintosh) was perhaps the last of the great Queens of Crime, somewhat bridging the gap between the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and the modern crime writer, as she touched on many subjects which were to feature more in the works of those who followed her. Tey wrote just eight crime/mystery novels, six of them featuring her main protagonist Inspector Alan Grant. She had a considerable output of other novels and short stories, stage, television and radio plays and poetry in her relatively short life (she died at 55 in 1952). She was a person of extreme privacy.  Her novel The Daughter of Time (featured here), a detective work wherein Grant in the modern day investigates the death of the Princes in the Tower, was chosen by the Crime Writers’ Association in 1990 as the greatest crime novel of all time. The Franchise Affair, also featured here, was 11th on the same list. Our third selection, Miss Pym Disposes, a non-Grant mystery set in a girls’ school, is a personal favourite. 
PICTURED: ALL BY JOSEPHINE TEY ALL SOLD
THE DAUGHTER OF TIME Penguin 1961 6th UK PB VG £4
THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR Penguin 1954 2nd UK PB GD/VG £4
MISS PYM DISPOSES Pan 1964 3rd UK PB VG £4