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1903, 1930s: Josephine Tey takes on the cold case of two murdering sisters
1903, 1930s: Josephine Tey takes on the cold case of two murdering sisters
London, 1903. Two women are hanged in Holloway Prison for killing babies. More than thirty years later, Josephine Tey sets out to write a novel about Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious Finchley baby farmers. Meanwhile, her friend, Inspector Archie Penrose is investigating the sadistic murder of a young seamstress, found dead in the Motley sisters’ studio, amid preparations for a star-studded charity gala. The girl’s death seems to be the result of a long-standing domestic feud, but Archie is unconvinced; and when a second young woman is involved in an horrific accident soon afterwards, the search begins for a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to keep the past where it belongs.
Back in London from her home in Inverness, she has some particularly views of the city.
“As impressive as it sequence of huge stores was, Oxford Street was one of Josephine’s least favourite parts of London, something to be endured for the sake of a weakness for clothes but never for longer than necessary. Gladly, she left its crowds and its clatter behind and cut through into the more select surroundings of Wigmore Street”
“There was something about the anonymity of walking through London in the early evening that never failed to delight her, a sense of freedom in the knowledge that- for as long as she chose – no one knew where she was or how to contact her.”
She visits the Times Book Club and sees that “Books never failed to bring out the dormant shopper in a man”
This is where the Cowdray Club is – “at the heart of what was once the most fashionable area of Georgian England”
Josephine Tey was one of the pseudonyms created by Elizabeth Mackintosh, the other being Gordon Daviot.
Mackintosh lived in Inverness and divided her time between her home city and London. When she died, she left the bulk of her estate in Inverness to the National Trust for England. There’s a story in that for sure.
There is also mention of Walberswick in Suffolk
Destination: London, Walberswick, Author/Guide: Nicola Upson Departure Time: 1939
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