A Shilling for Candles

[sawyl]

Josphine Teys second novel, A Shilling for Candles, is likeable and slightly problematic. On the plus side, it features a engaging cast of characters, introduces a some of the recurring regulars, and shows the normally unflappable Alan Grant subsisting on oceans of coffee and no sleep as he tries to get his man. But on the minus side the detective plot isn't really terribly satisfactory, the denouement doesn't quite work — although it's not quite as problematic as The Man in the Queue — and there's a definite whiff of anti-semitism in the way the only Jewish character is initially set up, although, in the interests of fairness, I'll note that the rest of the book treats him rather better.

The plot is driven by the discovery of a woman's body on a beach. The woman, who turns out to have been a glamorous movie star living incognito in Kent, has obviously been drowned and suspicion quickly falls on her house-guest, Robert Tisdall, a man who has frittered away the entirety of a substantial inheritance and who has spent the last few weeks relying on the kindness of his hostess. With the national press in uproar over the murder, Alan Grant finds himself dispatched to take charge of the case. He finds himself hard pressed, searching first for his suspect's coat and then later for his suspect. He is helped in his endeavours by his sergeant, by Erica Burgoyne, daughter of the Chief Constable, the actress Marta Hallard, and occasionally hindered by tabloid hack Jammy Hopkins.

As the action proceeds, the task of narrator shifts from one character to another, giving the book an ensemble feel. Grant is good as ever despite being rather less than his usual smooth self, while Jammy Hopkins is perfect caricature of a journalist — nosy, cynical about his own motives, willing to do whatever it takes to get a story, and every so slightly huffy when others don't realise that he isn't serious about what he writes. The starlet's dodgy brother, when he eventually turns up, is suitably gothic — he seems to have wandered straight out of the pages of The Italian — and her husband, an aristocrat with a passion for exploring the unexplored, is more of an absence than a presence, with his rank and dignity shaping the actions and attitudes of the other characters even though he spends most of his time off stage.

But of the cast, Erica is my favourite by far; she's just the sort of capable, self-possessed, unshockable young woman that Tey writes so well. Her no-nonsense charm seems to be good for almost every situation, from finding a suspect passed out on her father's rug to being pursued by an itinerant china-mender driven by nothing but the worst of intentions. And when she sets out to do a thing, sheer force of will ensures that she inevitably seems to achieve it.

Despite its flaws, A Shilling for Candles is a short, enjoyable read that doesn't really take itself too seriously and introduces a few minor characters who recur in Tey's later novels.