"The Singing Sands" by Josephine Tey is a strange murder mystery novel. The detective is Inspector Alan Grant. He has taken sick leave as his doctor prescribes a month in the country. Grant arranges to stay in Scotland with his cousin's family. He takes the night train up from London. In the morning, as he walks down the corridor leaving the train, Grant notes that the cabin steward is trying to wake a passenger. Grant senses a problem and leans in to take a quick look. Being a homicide detective, Grant recognizes a dead body when he sees one. Grant tells the steward that his passenger is a dead passenger. He leaves the train as he suspects nothing unusual about the death. While eating breakfast at the station terminal Grant finds that he has quite accidentally purloined the dead man's newspaper: a newspaper that has a clue. Quite a good story except for the odd fanciful ending.

I love Josephine Tey, but I have mixed feelings about this book. There are some excellent moments, especially some that are so funny I actually laughed out loud. But then, Inspector Grant goes too often into an "internal dialogue"; and it gets tiresome after the second page of these kinds of exchanges. I actually skipped one of them altogether. Also, the "detecting" only really start half way through the book. Very well written, but I read other much better books by her, my favorite being The Franchise Affair. Still (and considering modern authors!) a very good read.

Another Josephine Tey mystery that is unusual and completely captivating, she mesmerizes you, as well as being sharply observant about humanity....