The Franchise Affair

Marion Sharpe and her mother are quiet and ordinary villagers, enjoying a peaceful life in their country home, the Franchise. Everything changes when a local schoolgirl accuses them of kidnap and abuse, describing the attic room of the house as her prison. Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant is called to solve the mystery of the Franchise, but will he fall right in the middle of nightmarish affair that will change a town, and its locals' lives, forever?

'The new crime and espionage series from Penguin Classics makes for a mouth-watering prospect' Daily Telegraph 
Abducted, beaten, hidden in an attic, a young woman stages an audacious escape. But is her story everything she claims it to be? 
Fifteen-year-old Betty Kane can recall every detail of the room where she says she was held at the country house known as The Franchise - even the crack in its round window. But her alleged kidnappers, a quiet-living mother and daughter, claim they have never seen her before. Somebody has to be lying. But who? As the case sparks a media frenzy, it is up to unassuming village solicitor Robert Blair to find out.

Permanent classics in the detective field . . . no superlatives are adequate.

An ingenious book ... The essential mystery is wonderfully established; the claustrophobic building-up of the apparently seamless case against the Sharpes is impeccably done.

A detective story with a very considerable difference. Ingenious, stimulating and very enjoyable.

Josephine Tey began to write full-time after the successful publication of her first novel, The Man in the Queue (1929), which introduced Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard. It wasn't until after the Second World War that the majority of her crime novels were published. Born in Inverness, Tey died in 1952, leaving her entire estate to the National Trust.

Josephine Tey

Discover the new Penguin Crime and Espionage series 
 
An impostor has a fortune to win - but he may be in danger of losing his life... 
 
Twenty-one-year-old Brat Farrar is an orphan, alone in the world without friends or family. So when he is offered the unexpected chance to impersonate Patrick Ashby, the long-lost heir to a vast fortune on a country estate, he agrees. Brat is the spitting image of Patrick, who disappeared years ago. At first it seems Brat can pull off this incredible deception, until he starts to realise that he is in far greater peril than he ever imagined.

Josephine Tey

Brat Farrar

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