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Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.

And this week we're talking about Josephine Tay, the Golden Age crime

writer, three of whose novels, The Franchise Affair, To Love and Be Wise and the Daughter

of Time are being reissued by Penguin. With me is Nicola Upsen, herself a crime writer

whose novels feature Josephine Tay as a detective, and the latest

of which, dear little corpses, is out now. Nicola, welcome. Thanks, sir. Lovely to be here.

Now, I confess to my shame that when I heard these books were being reissued, I had only very dimly

even heard of Josephine Tay, but I discovered that, you know, the Crime Writers Association

of America, for instance, says that the Daughters of Time is, you know, the greatest crime

novel ever written. Why has she faded out from under the radar in this way? It's a tricky

one, that one, because Tay, I think, balances what she lacks in quantity amongst her fans. And I agree with you. She's not as well

known as what lots of people would call the big four of the Golden Age, people like Marjorie

Allingham and Agatha Christie, of course, Sayers and Nio Marsh. Part of that, I think, is to do with

the sheer fact of her output. Sadly, Tay died in 1952 at the age of just 55.

So her career as a crime writer was cut short just after she'd written that lovely clutch

of six detective novels after the Second World War. So really, we only have eight Josephine Tay novels to go on,

as opposed to the rather more prolific output of some of her contemporaries. But I think,

and certainly actually writing my own books with her as a character, it's true to say that

whilst lots of Tay fans have come to them, Lots of people reading these books for the first time

weren't aware that Josephine Tay was even a real character when they first picked up the books.

So I think you're right to say that she's not as well known. But I think, as I say, what she lacks

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