Book review: To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey

The fifty-ninth book I read in 2015 was To Love and Be Wise, the fourth Alan Grant novel by Josephine Tey.  Inspector Grant is picking up recurring will-they-or-won't-they character Marta Hallard for a not-a-date when he happens to meet an arresting American photographer, whose sudden arrival in London upsets the lives and loves of the artsy crowd Tey loves to chronicle.  The upheaval is only exacerbated by the sudden mysterious disappearance of the American, under circumstances that throw suspicion in all directions.

Actress Marta Hallard really comes into her own in this book, having been a recurring character from the beginning of the series.  For the first time, one truly hopes that she and Alan might get unPlatonic.

Tey's grasp of American geography is a bit suspect.  For one thing, she seems to think it entirely reasonable that a photographer of Hollywood stars would live in San Francisco, as if there weren't 400 miles separating it from Los Angeles; for another, she refers to Peoria and "Paduca" (rather than Paducah, Kentucky), at least in my paperback edition.