Play Book Tag discussion

4 stars for the writing, minus 2.

Yes, I know this was a common attitude at her time, but after reading the introduction I know more about her now. Because the slur came out of the mouth of a character I kept on reading--there are unsavoury characters and if I quit reading every novel with an offensive character pretty soon I'd be limited to certain children's novels for the most part. That said, I went back to the introduction of this edition (I tend to skip them in case they give away too much of the book) and there Robert Bernard wrote, "Coming at the end of the Golden Age of crime fiction, Tey does not escape some of the less attractive attitudes of her contemporaries: anti-Seimtism, contempt for the working class, a deep uneasiness about enthusiasm (for example, Scottish nationalism) that, to her, smacks of crankiness." (She was born in Scotland.)

One of the things I like about Tey's writing is that she doesn't stick to the regular method of writing murder mysteries, so there is more variation. The cast of characters was well done, the story strong and the pacing good. However, I am not planning to read any more by her.