The Franchise Affair
Posted By Claire on July 25, 2010
I recently finished reading Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair, and it was delicious. Well-done whodunits are extremely hard to find, and a mystery which doubles as a romance with thoughtful bits of social and religious commentary along the way is even rarer. The Franchise Affair is all of these, a thoroughly engaging and satisfying novel about a middle-aged barrister who becomes the reluctant defendant of two women charged with the brutal kidnapping of a young girl. Robert Blair, a lawyer who has been known as “dependable” his whole life, is a particularly compelling protagonist as a man whose sense of justice drives him to great lengths to defend the women he believes to be innocent. Quick-witted Marion Sharpe, her fearsome mother, and Kevin McDermott, Robert’s old friend and a brilliant defense lawyer, are just a few of the other characters who populate this beautifully written novel. Any fans of Agatha Christie should enjoy this, and I have since discovered that Josephine Tey, a Scot, is a highly-regarded mystery writer whose novels are generally considered classics, but who wrote only a handful of novels and is thus well-known than many of her counterparts in the genre. I’ll certainly be reading more of her.
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