A Shilling for Candles

A Shilling for Candles, first published in 1936, is a finely poised Golden Age detective novel in which Inspector Alan Grant investigates the death of the celebrated actress Christine Clay, found drowned on the English coast. Tey combines the architecture of the classical whodunit with a more modern interest in personality, motive, and public performance. Her prose is lucid, ironic, and economical, attentive as much to atmosphere and social nuance as to clues. Josephine Tey was the pseudonym of ...