Pages

Saturday, June 05, 2021

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!


4 comments:

  1. I usually check for any book you've read that sounds interesting (I just downloaded 'Premeditated Myrtle from the library) and then looked up Josephine Tey. She has a few books I can also download so I checked with Goodreads to see what they are about. And I found these. https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=josephine+tey&qid=SoABOyDOCc . They are also available at my local library as bound copies, which I usually prefer, but during a pandemic they are not as easily available. Nonetheless I have put the first one on hold.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's great! I hope you'll enjoy them all. I love Myrtle, she's hilarious, so I hope you will also find some entertaining reading there. And so many Tey books :)

      Delete
  2. Great post - it's a fabulous book, isn't it? One of my favourite Tey titles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Really super. I have a couple more of her books on my shelves to explore as well.

      Delete

Thanks for stopping by ~ I always enjoy hearing your comments so please feel free to leave some!