Angel With Two Faces (Josephine Tey Book Two) by Nicola Upson

 

Angel with Two Faces (Josephine Tey Book Two) by Nicola Upson.

Published 14th November 2009 by Faber and Faber.

From the cover of the book:

Inspector Archie Penrose invites Josephine Tey down to his family home in Cornwall so she can recover from the traumatic events depicted in "An Expert in Murder".

Josephine welcomes the opportunity, especially since Archie's home is near the famous Minack open-air theatre perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. However, Josephine's hopes of experiencing a period of rest are dashed when her arrival coincides with the funeral of a young man from the village who had drowned when his horse inexplicably leapt into the nearby lake. 

When another young man disappears and the village's curate falls from the cliffs of the Minack Theatre onto the rocks below, Josephine and Archie begin to suspect the involvement a cold-blooded murderer. 

As Josephine and Archie try to unravel the mystery, they begin to see death as an angel with two faces - one gazing at the violence in the present, the other looking back to the crimes hidden in the past.

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London detective, DI Archie Penrose is back in Cornwall for a break at his family home on the Loe Estate, looking forward to the arrival of his friend, author Josephine Tey. It is a chance to recover from the strains of the last year, which involved them both in the hunt for a killer, after a series of murders connected with Josephine's play Richard of Bordeaux. Josephine is equally excited to get away for some rest and relaxation, intrigued about the chance to see a different side of Archie in his childhood stomping ground, and to get to grips with writing her next book.

Archie's holiday gets off to an inauspicious start when he finds himself a pall-bearer at the funeral of estate worker Harry Pinching, whose horse mysteriously plunged into the depths of a nearby lake... and the tragedies do not stop there. When a young lad from the village disappears, and the local curate dramatically falls to his death during an amateur performance at the stunning Minack Theatre, Archie's holiday comes to an abrupt end. He must now head up a muder investigation, and his connection to this small community is both a blessing and a curse. With Josephine's help, the pair discover that all is not quite as peaceful at the heart of Loe estate as it seems. Can they get to the bottom of the mystery before more victims fall prey to the legacy of a web of secrets and lies?

My reread of Nicola Upson's brilliant Josephine Tey mysteries continues with book two, Angel with Two Faces...

Death is an angel with two faces -

To us he turns

A face of terrors, blighting all things fair.

The other burns

With glory of the stars, a love is there.

T.C. Williams

Following on from the shocking events of An Expert in Murder, which had Archie and Josephine pairing up to find a killer stalking London's theatre-land, Nicola Upson settles upon a very different setting for their next adventure together - beautiful, rural Cornwall, where Archie grew up. However, she does not abandon the theatre theme completely, because this mystery also revolves partly around a play set at the stunning, cliff-edge, Minack Theatre (which is almost a full-blown character in itself), and to my delight, there are a few familiar faces from the first book too, in Archie's theatrical designer cousins, Ronnie and Lettice Morley, and their housekeeper Mrs Snipe!

With delicious, spot-on between-the-war vibes, this is a complex story set on a Cornish country estate still reeling from the First world War and casting troubled eyes towards an uncertain future, and yet the threads of the mystery Archie and Josephine must untangle are very much about the personal relationships of a tight-knit community that holds itself apart from the world outside - so much so that Archie himself struggles with being viewed as an 'outsider' despite growing up here.

It is nigh on impossible to delve into this plot too much without spoilers, but Upson does an incredible job of peeling away the carefully contrived layers of both story and characters to reveal the rawness of emotions that have become a terrible burden for the older members of the community, and have led to the breaking of taboos in the younger ones. Good and bad intentions, abuse, yearning, sibling rivalry, forbidden love, and curiously for a story steeped in violence and recriminations, innocence too, all play a part here - and Upson wrings every ounce of emotion from the tapestry she weaves to profound effect... right the way to Archie's own door.

As usual, the close relationship between Archie and Josephine is the spine of the novel. Having moved past the weight of things unsaid in the previous book, their friendship becomes deeper in this story through the threads that touch Archie's family - and they even have a little bit of fun at the expense of those around them who are constantly trying to match-make. I adore the way Upson writes them, with a masterclass in portraying the kind of friendship built on years of journeying together through the highs and lows of life. 

The Cornwall Tey loved (in her real life persona as Elizabeth MacKintosh) comes alive in this story, showing all its picturesque, myth-laden, and menacing guises, and Upson plays exquisitely with notions of faith and how death is viewed as 'an angel with two faces', looking backwards to sins of the past and forward to the violence they have given birth to. Upson's own attachment to Cornwall shines through these pages too.

I had forgotten quite how much the twists in this tale keep you guessing, and thoroughly enjoyed being fooled by them all again, second time around, via the accomplished voice talents of Sandra Duncan in the audio book edition. Onwards to my revisit of book three, Two for Sorrow!

Angel with Two Faces is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

About the author:

Nicola Upson is the author the Josephine Tey mysteries, including An Expert in Murder, and two works of nonfiction. She has worked in theatre and as a freelance journalist. A recipient of an Escalator Award from the Arts Council England, she splits her time between Cambridge and Cornwall.