Miss Pym Disposes

Miss Pym Disposes / Josephine Tey
NY: Scribner, 1998, c1946.
238 p.

And another setting I adore in a good mystery -- this is set at a girls' school, to which Miss Pym arrives as an outsider. She's been invited to come as a lecturer in Psychology, based on a successful book she's written, and psychology does play a large role in this strange story. 

The school that she is visiting is a physical training school for girls. They arise early, exercise and play sports, and of course study. But while the principal of the school feels that this kind of physical culture is very healthful, Miss Pym knows that it doesn't change the emotions between girls in this enclosed community. 

The first 2/3 of the book really just deals with building the characters and the setting, to developing the slow burn that leads to the tragedy that takes place about 80 pages in. Miss Pym is definitely not a sleuth, she's just an academic and psychology student. But due to her sympathetic presence and outsider's eye, she determines just what happened when star student Mary Innes is passed over for a vacancy at a high-level academy in favour of another, unpopular, student. 

But what happened brings with it a moral quandry for Miss Pym. What should she share? Or do? Was it it an intentional incident or simply an accident? And is there even any basis for her deductions? 

This is an intriguing novel, full of great character studies of all kind of women -- from the instructors to the varied students to Miss Pym herself. The interplay of all these characters is fascinating and key to the plot as well. Apparently Josephine Tey taught at physical training schools before she became a writer, so her observations of her own experiences really flesh out the believability of this book. 

If you're not expecting a tricksy mystery, but rather, a study of a slow fuse and the potential for drama, this is the book for you. It does present a puzzle, but not a single sided one. There is a lot of nuance to the main event in the book, and in many of the smaller set pieces as well. Each character has their pros and cons, nobody is an angel or a complete villain. Definitely a good read!