Robert Blair has settled into the law firm that was waiting for him. His cousin Nevil, is the younger partner now. Robert is sitting in his office after tea contemplating leaving for the day when his phone rings. It is Marion Sharpe - she would like him to come out to the Franchise because Scotland Yard is there and she wants someone to advise her and her mother. He tries to get her to call Carley, a criminal lawyer, but she refuses. So, intrigued, he goes out there. A 16 year old school girl claims that Marion and her mother kidnapped her and tried to force her to be a maid. When Betty tried to escape they beat her. She describes where she was locked in the attic - a small room with a round window. And claims she escaped after six weeks when they forgot to lock the door. She managed to catch a ride with a lorry driver to get home. At first she refuses to tell her family what happened and won't talk to police, but is finally persuaded. The Sharpes have never seen the girl and have no idea what she is talking about, but this sweet-faced girl is piling up evidence against them. Inspector Grant decides there is not enough real evidence - it is mostly circumstantial. Betty's foster brother (she was adopted when her parents were killed during a bombing raid in WWII), is highly indignant the Yard won't do anything and goes to the papers. Which blows the whole thing up and puts the Sharpe women in a state of siege in their isolated house. Added to which, a vindictive maid sees further opportunity to get revenge. Robert begins to go round, tallking to people who knew Betty. He talks to the aunt she was staying with in a nearby town. Franchise is between this town and Milford where his practice is. Her aunt tells him she would go to the cinema in the mornings and ride buses into the countryside in the afternoons. Her aunt thought she had gone home, but her family thought she was still with the aunt. But Robert talks to some people around the town who had a different idea of the girl. But he still needs proof and hires a private detective on the recommendation of his trial lawyer friend, Kevin McDermott. Kevin comes to visit and finds Mrs Sharpe is a sister of his horse breeding friend who bred Kevin's first pony and very knowledgeable about horses in her own right, so he decides to help Robert defend them. So, was this sweet girl kidnapped? or was their something else even worse going on?I stumbled across Josephine Tey years ago, and found her mysteries fascinating. I believe the first I read was Daughter of Time. And I was hooked. There is just something very appealing and distinctive about her stories. She does not stick to the mystery 'rules', but that just makes them more intriguing. You never know for sure what will happen.
“The first dark germ of The Little Stranger, however, came to me from another genre entirely. The book has its origins in my response to a detective novel from 1948: The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, a novel I first read more than a decade ago, and which has fascinated and troubled me, in about equal measures, ever since.”Josephine Tey’s novels have been sitting on my shelves for a while now, but it was Sarah Waters who finally make me pick this one up. I’m very glad that she did.The story opens in a solicitor’s office in a quiet country town. The scene is set perfectly. Robert Blair’s usual business is conveyancing, wills and investments but, just as he is rising to leave the office, he receives a telephone call that will lead him to a very different case.He is summoned to The Franchise, a large house behind a high wall on the edge of town. Marion Sharpe lives there with her mother in genteel poverty. The story he hears there is extraordinary.Betty Kane had just left school. One day, she says, she missed the bus home from town. She accepted a lift from two ladies in a car. And those two women kidnapped her and kept her prisoner to act as their servant. Because they couldn’t find anybody willing to work in their big house on the edge of town. She was locked up, beaten and kept hungry to make her comply. Finally she found a locked door and made her escape.The describes the Sharpes, their car, details of their home perfectly.They are astounded, and insist that they have never seen the girl before. Robert believes them. But how does she know so much. How can he prove that she wasn’t there?So begins an extraordinary mystery. A crime without a body, without a single drop of blood shed. Little facts emerge and a picture builds and changes. Progress is slow, and yet a fairly unremarkable country solicitor holds the attention. Why? Well Josephine Tey can certainly write. All of her characters are distinctive beautifully drawn, her story-telling is assured, her plotting is clever, and she paints a clear picture of a time and place.The social changes that followed the war are illuminated. The tabloid press take a keen interest. And their neighbours are eager that the women that they perceive to be wicked criminals are punished. There is much food for thought, with every element judged and balanced perfectly.The story culminates in a brilliant court room scene. The truth is revealed. And followed by a wonderful observation.It was the right conclusion to a wonderful story. It won’t be too long until Josephine Tey’s other books come off the shelf.
What do You think about The Franchise Affair (1998)?
Jonathan Yardley, book critic for the Washington Post, writes of Tey's six final novels, "Each of the six seems as fresh today as it must have been when it first appeared: elegantly written, populated with interesting and sometimes eccentric characters, witty, but also laugh-out-loud funny, engaged with far deeper themes and ideas than one is accustomed to encounter in most mystery novels." I have to agree with his assessment. I loved Tey’s fine writing, excellent dialogue, and gentle humor. I loved the Hobbit-like Mr. Blair, a country lawyer, who gives up his quiet bachelorhood to take on the case of Marian Sharpe. There are some obscure phrases related to English culture in the 1950’s, but a quick search on google explained most of them. The book includes a very mild sprinkling of profanity.
—Hope
All of Josephine Tey's mysteries are favorites of mine. Her writing is consistently wonderful, her characters interesting, and her stories absorbing. is no exception and goes on my favorite shelf.Recommended: those who enjoy mystery fiction (in the British cozy tradition) and great writing.
—Ellie
Although this is listed as the third book in Tey's Alan Grant series, here he plays more of a background role rather than the main character. That honor goes toRobert Blair, a typical small-town English solicitor in the quiet village of Milford. His old and established legal firm, Blair, Hayward and Bennet, handles matters of "wills, conveyancing and investments." But with one desperate telephone call, Blair is thrust into a most bizarre case which takes him to a house called The Franchise.Upon his arrival, he is met by Marion Sharpe and her mother, the owners of the house, along with Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard. Grant is there investigating the story of Betty Kane, a demure young schoolgirl who claims that she had been kidnapped by the Sharpes one day after missing a bus and held prisoner in an attic room, where she was beaten when she refused to perform household duties. According to Kane, Mrs. Sharpe left the door unlocked one night, and Betty was able to make her escape. She was able to describe the inside of the house to a tee, down to the different types of suitcases in a closet, as well as the distinctive features of their car. But the problem is that both Marion and her mother swear that they've never set eyes on the girl, and they're absolutely baffled as to her knowledge of the house. Blair is positive that the women are innocent, and despite some misgivings, agrees to help, despite the insurmountable odds against success. And so it begins.Tey's characters are believable, the plot is engrossing, but what makes this novel work well is how she successfully plunges her readers immediately not only into the crime, but into the mounting tension surrounding the case up until the end. And although The Franchise Affair is set in the countryside, it is a sophisticated story, not just another English country house-based mystery.Although written in 1949, Franchise Affair is still a very good read, with some clearly recognizable elements (such as the power of the tabloids to fuel the fires of those who read them), and a completely different storyline than most of her earlier novels and of the novels of that period. Tey based this novel on a true crime of the 18th century focusing on another young girl, Elizabeth Canning. If you're at all interested, there are two fictional accounts of this 18th-century story that I'm aware of: Elizabeth is Missing, by Lillian de la Torre and The Canning Wonder, by Arthur Machen. For aficionados of classic mysteries, The Franchise Affair is definitely recommended. The end is a little sappy, but you won't care because the case is so satisfying.
—Nancy Oakes
