MISS PYM DISPOSES

Josephine Tey again. Loved again, maybe even more than Brat Farrar. Whereas the former plays on the English-country-house genre, this one is an English school novel, which I’m also a sucker for. It reminded me a bit of Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night, but pared down and with a bit less neurosis; in this case, the setting is not Oxford, but a vigorous and wholesome women’s physical training college (a phenomenon I was not quite familiar with, but it seems to educate both gym teachers and physical therapists). As with Brat, although the story is plenty suspenseful, it’s not a traditional mystery but a character-driven drama, and I fell head over heels with both Miss Pym and the students. A perfect mix of cheer and chills.