Is The Franchise Affair the perfect crime novel? [review]
The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey
Sometimes a classic mystery or crime novel is the only type of book that will satisfy my mood. I don’t want the kind that oozes with blood or is ultra complex but equally the novel shouldn’t be ‘cosy’, or pedestrian.
Josephine Tey’s 1948 novel The Franchise Affair fitted my recent requirements perfectly.
It’s what I would class as an ‘intelligent’ mystery/crime novel. There are no bodies to be counted, no trail of blood, no criminals to be tracked down and unmasked in a grand dénouement (á la Poirot) and no unexpected plot reversals (á la Christie). Instead Tey presents her readers with a puzzle and invites them to follow along with the ‘detective’ as he seeks to find the truth among a knot of lies and inconsistencies.
The job of sleuth in this novel falls on the shoulders of Robert Blair, a respected solicitor in a respected family law firm in the country town of Milton. He’s called upon to defend Marion Sharpe and her mother who live in “The Franchise”, an imposing house on the outskirts of town.
They’re accused of kidnapping fifteen-year-old Betty Kane, holding her prisoner for a month and beating her when she refuses to do their cleaning. This is far from Robert’s usual kind of case but he’s been feeling lately that his life is rather unexciting and predictable. He’s rather taken with the Sharpe women and their sensible, forthright manner but he distrusts Betty’s story even though she can describe accurately items and rooms inside The Franchise.
Robert begins a painstaking search for clues that will prove his clients’ innocence and reveal that Betty is more of a cunning minx than the butter-wouldn’t-melt figure she presents to police and jurors.
Media ethics in the spotlight
The Franchise Affair is a cleverly paced novel. The first half is very much about Robert’s inability to find the holes in Betty’s story. Though he learns some surprising facts about her, he’s frustrated there is no real breakthrough. The second half has more tension; a race against time as the Sharpe’s find themselves arrested and the evidence appears to be firmly stacked against them.
Beyond the mechanics of the investigation lies a well crafted portrayal of how the media and a community react to a scandal in their midst.
Marion Sharpe and her mother were already viewed with suspicion in the town. They’re ‘outsiders’, for one thing and have acquired a reputation for being rude. The conservative townies think Marion looks like a gypsy with her dark hair, browned skin and colourful scarves. Perhaps, it’s whispered, they are witches…
The people of Milton find it easy to believe that these women who live in a ramshackle ugly house behind large gates, could be kidnappers and abusers. They find it equally easy to believe in Betty’s story, particularly when the girl’s youthful appearance and clothes makes even sober men think of “forget-me-nots and wood-smoke and bluebells and summer distances.”
This is a novel about the way people jump to conclusions. The townsfolk assume Betty is innocent because she looks that way and because she was orphaned during the war . They assume Marion Sharpe and her mother are wrong-doers because they live in a large house (hence must be wealthy) and are a little odd.
Tey clearly doesn’t have much time for people like this. But she is even more disapproving of the way the media feed their prejudices. One newspaper, the Ack-Emma is described as:
… the latest representative of the tabloid newspaper to enter British journalism from the West. It was run on the principle that two thousand pounds for damages is a cheap price to pay for sales worth half a million.
The Ack-Emma’s sensational headlines are instrumental in whipping up public animosity against the Sharpes. They take Betty’s story at face value, publish a picture of the Sharpe’s house (which then becomes a target for vigilantes) and allow abusive missives about the Sharpes to appear in their letters’ page. Tey’s narrator bemoans this new style of reporting. Time was, says the narrator, when newspapers could be relied upon to exercise sound judgement about the contents of their editions. But newspapers like Ack-Emma’ don’t confirm to those old principles.
However the narrator also acknowledges the Ack-Emma’s new style of reporting has clearly found favour with readers since sales had boomed and “in any suburban railway station seven out of ten people bound for work in the morning” were reading its pages.
Faultless characterisation
The Franchise Affair is a darn good story pepped up with sparky social commentary. It also has some first class characters. Robert Blair is a joy as the lifelong bachelor with a peaceful life. He has tea and biscuits brought each day to his desk on a on lacquered tray covered with a clock. He can clock off work after the post has gone at 3.45pm, just in time for a round of golf before dinner. He’s also waited on hand and foot by a devoted aunt). I
His client ‘old’ Mrs Sharp is a fun character. Her acerbic tongue matches her name but she has has an equally sharp eye for spotting a winning race horse.
Pride of place however goes to one of the members of the supporting cast; Robert’s Aunt Linn: “a solid little figure with the short neck and round pink face and iron-grey hair that frizzed out from large hairpins.” She’s a woman perfectly content with her life which revolves around recipes, church bazars and film star gossip gleaned from magazines. Though she’s not too keen on her nephew taking on the Sharpe’s case because the people at The Franchise “aren’t the kind of people I naturally take to” she is one of the few people in Milton who doesn’t let appearances get in the way of a desire for justice.
Though there are aspects of The Franchise Affair that situate it in a particular period (a post-war England which still has the death penalty) it deals with issues that are still relevant today. Questions about media responsibility and accountability and the way communities take ‘justice’ into their own hands, are just as pertinent in 2019 as they were in 1948.
About the author
Josephine Tey was the pseudonym of Elizabeth MacKintosh who was born in Inverness, Scotland in 1896. She also wrote plays under the name Gordon Daviot, a surname that might have been chosen because it was the name of the place near Inverness where she spent family holidays.
Her first published work appeared under the name of Gordon Daviot in The Westminster Gazette in 1925. Her first mystery novel, The Man in the Queue, was published in 1929, marking the first appearance of Inspector Alan Grant from Scotland Yard. Grant makes a few brief appearances in The Franchise Affair.
Why I read this novel
I read and enjoyed another of Tey’s novels, The Daughter of Time in 2017. It’s an unusual novel, an investigation into the mystery of a historical event (the deaths of the Princes in the Tower). I was taken by her writing style, enough to want to read more of her work and luckily found a copy of The Franchise Affair in a charity bookshop. Incidentally this novel was included in a list of recommended crime novels published by The Sunday Times.
I lost my comment–if this is a duplicate, please delete. I really liked Daughter in Time because it hinged on real research. I’d like to use it in a class to show why Google isn’t everything. Have you read the series with a fictionalized Tey as sleuth? There is also a new series with Daphne Du Maurier as a fictionalized sleuth.
Daughters in Time would be a great teaching resource. Wish we could have read the book when we were doing the Tudor period in school – would have been great fun.
I don’t those series – who are the authors?
Nicola Upson for Tey series & Daphne du Maurier Mysteries (Volume 3)
Joanna Challis
I haven’t read them.
Thanks for this info. Will be looking into them.
Sounds great, will check it out
It will be a quick read for you..
How very fascinating Karen. I’ve only read The daughter of time, which I remember enjoying very much, albeit a long time ago. I haven’t heard on any other of her work, but I reckon I could like this one. I wonder if my 90 year old Mum would like it.
she may well do, I’m planning to pass my copy onto my mum who is 83…
I might check it out. My Mum is 90 next month.
I have ordered it.
I gave this to my Mum for her 90th birthday, and she has read it and liked it – must show her your post, and see what she thinks in terms of what you say.
I suspect she’ll feel that my rambling thoughts don’t do justice to the book.
Au contraire, she wishes she had read this before she told her reading group about it! (Its being winter here, and many people away, they just discussed their latest reads at her last meeting rather than all read a particular book as they do usually do.)
I first heard of Josephine Tey from another blogger I follow who was wowed by A Daughter of Time. I don’t know if I can fit her into my reading plans but it is good to learn about another book of hers. Your review is excellent!
Thanks Judy, it’s quite a slim book so you might be able to squeeze it in 🙂
Nice review! Once I’d got used to the fact that there were no dead bodies, I really enjoyed the way Tey went about writing this one.
I’m chuckling now at the thought you were turning the pages wondering when the body was going to appear……
I enjoyed this books too. One of the things I liked about it is that it’s based on a real case from the 18th century of a girl who went missing and later claimed she had been kidnapped. I think it would be interesting to compare how the press in the 18th century reported the case.
Great post! I loved this one too and you’re spot on about how it’s still so relevant. As well as being a great read! 😀
Is there another of her books that you’d recommend Karen?
It’s a long time since I read them but the one that stands out for me is Miss Pym Disposes. Set in a school and I do love a school mystery. Not an Inspector Grant but still very good! I’m afraid I can’t recall specifics about the others! ;D
It’s a long time since I read this, almost certainly for the same reason that you did. I remember enjoying it but not as much as ‘The Daughter of Time’ – I was in the middle of a Richard III ‘thing’, as I recall. I think there may have been a TV version, but don’t quote me on that. Having just re-read ‘Circe’, I was interested in your remark about the Sharpes being seen as witches. Any woman living on her own and managing without males in her life gets tarred with the same brush whenever and wherever you happen to be writing about.
I think I’d have enjoyed Daughter of Time even more if I’d brushed up on my R3 knowledge beforehand. It did prompt some interesting discussions with my sister and niece, both history fans…
This is one of the books Martin Edwards lists in his The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, so I’ll be reading it at some point. I was put off Tey a little by her book about Richard III, The Daughter of Time which, unlike most people, I really didn’t enjoy. This one sounds much more appealing, I must say – you’ve renewed my enthusiasm to get to it!
It’s a more straightforward mystery – none of the info dump that you get in Daughter of Time
Good to know!
I really enjoyed this novel, too. Interestingly, it’s stayed with me a lot more than many other mysteries I’ve read over the past few years – the sign of a good book, I think. The resolution is so very clever.
I do enjoy a crime novel now and again but hardly ever remember them – so often end up reading the same book more than once. But like you, I think I will remember this one because it was clever and was a lot more than just a mystery.
I don’t read this kind of novel at all, well, hardly ever, but you make it sound very appealing!
It’s not a genre I read much of Laura, so when I do, I want to make sure it;s worth it. And I can say that this one was
The Franchise Affairs sounds really good! Thanks for describing the characters and some of the dialogue. That’s really helpful in deciding whether a book is worth a read or not.
Thanks for that feedback Jinjer. I do like to see extracts when I read a book review because it gives me a sense of the author;s style
I do think it would be interesting to read a novel that comments on the trustworthiness of media in a different time to compare to 2019. Journalists are fighting extra hard in the U.S. to maintain the freedom of speech and freedom of press in the face of the big cheese in the White House. He hasn’t said much about the press being liars that has made it into the press lately, and I wonder if someone advised him to stop or if his focus has simply shifted to trade wars. Perhaps my ears and eyes are more open and there is no change, but I feel like loads of interesting-sounding books of investigative journalism are coming out right now, and I’ve added several to my TBR.
Apparently in the press conference with Theresa May this week he did use the expression ‘fake news’ so it hasn’t gone away – unfortunately. There are sections of the media who use practices that I detest but the there are plenty of journalists and media channels who do a fantastic job of holding people in public office to account. I’d like to hear more about those books you’ve discovered.
I have one called No Visible Bruises coming up in June!
I’ll keep an eye out for your thoughts on that
I have yet to read The Franchise Affair but I can recommend Brat Farrar as another excellent book by Tey. One of my all-time favourites.
I think I started that as an audio book a long time ago but couldn’t get into it. I suspect it was the format that was the problem, some books just don’t work well on audio