Good Day For A Cozy Book, East Missoula, Montana

“The cold struck him like a blow in the face and he began to shiver uncontrollably….
He stumbled up the steps and across the bridge….They were all wrong about hell, he thought. Hell wasn’t a nice cosy place where you fried. Hell was a great cold echoing cave where there was neither past nor future; a black, echoing desolation. Hell was concentrated essence of a winter morning after a sleepless night of self-distaste.” 
- Josephine Tey, from “The Singing Sands”, p. 12

Today’s quote is not meant as a focus on the macabre or depressing, but rather to share an appreciation for the keen descriptive skill of a new-to-me author, Josephine Tey. 
I’ve been enjoying her mystery fiction of this past week, specifically a couple books in the Inspector Alan Grant series.

In “The Singing Sands”, I’m particularly intrigued by her sensitive portrayal of panic attacks in an era when one didn’t talk of such “weakness” but braved through as best they could, on their own, the fear that no one would understand - particularly if one were a male police inspector. If I hadn’t noted of the 1951 copyright (little obscure detail freak that I am), I’d have thought her views were coloured by current research and the internet’s readily available information.

May 2014 bring us serendipitous discovery of many more good reads!