Angel with Two Faces

Summer, 1935. Inspector Archie Penrose has invited Josephine Tey to his family home in Cornwall, a struggling but beautiful country estate on a magnificent stretch of coastline. Still haunted by the dark events of the year before - depicted in An Expert in Murder - and disillusioned with the London stage, Josephine is ready to begin work on her second mystery novel and finds much to inspire her in the landscape and its legends - in particular, a lake on the estate which is said to claim a life every seven years, and the nearby Minack Theatre, an open-air auditorium which overlooks the sea.

But death clouds the holiday from the outset: Josephine’s arrival coincides with the funeral of a young estate worker, killed in a mysterious riding accident, and another local boy disappears shortly afterwards. When the Minack proves to be a stage for real-life tragedy and an audacious murder, Archie’s loyalties are divided between his friends and his job. He and Josephine must confront the violent reality which lies beneath a seemingly idyllic community - a community with one face turned towards the present, and another looking back to the crimes of the past.

Some questions for Nicola Upson:

'Tell us about Josephine Tey, the real-life Golden Age crime writer, who is the heroine of your novels.' [ Nicola's reply ]

'What made you want to turn a real character into a fictional one?' [ reply ]

'Do people assume you're writing pastiche of the Golden Age? Is there more to it than that? [ reply ]

'So you write about crimes that might have appeared in the 1930s, but which wouldn't have found their way into the fiction of the Golden Age?' [ reply ]

Download an interview with Nicola Upson here .