Brat Farrar

Description

A classic mystery from the Golden Age of detective fiction. A stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that threaten to jeopardise the imposter's plan and his very life...

Josephine Tey is one of the best-known and best-loved of all crime writers. She began to write full-time after the successful publication of her first novel, The Man in the Queue (1929), which introduced Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard. In 1937 she returned to crime writing with A Shilling for Candles, but it wasn't until after the Second World War that the majority of her crime novels were published. Josephine Tey died in 1952, leaving her entire estate to the National Trust.

Suspense is achieved by unexpected twists and extremely competent story-telling . . . credible and convincing * Spectator * Josephine Tey enjoys a category to herself, as a virtuoso in the spurious ... the nature of the deception on this occasion is too good to give away * New Statesman * Really first class . . . a continual delight * Times Literary Supplement * Ingenious, stimulating and very enjoyable * Sunday Times *