Josephine Tey

The Singing Sands

US$80

Illustrated by Mark Smith

Introduced By Val McDermid

One of Tey’s finest novels, this suspenseful story centres on the mysterious death of a young man on a train, and the cryptic poem that gradually reveals the greed and envy behind his demise. Award-winning artist Mark Smith illustrates.

The Singing Sands

US$80

Book Details

Presentation Box & BindingBound in buckram blocked with a design by the artist
Plain slipcase

Dimensions9 inches x 5¾ inches

FontSet in Dante with No. 5 display

Pages256 pages

AuthorJosephine Tey

Illustrated byMark Smith

IllustrationFrontispiece and 6 colour illustrations

Publication Date13/08/2014

Editor's Notes

Diagnosed with ‘overwork’ and in the grip of debilitating claustrophobia, Inspector Alan Grant takes leave from Scotland Yard and heads for the peaceful home of his cousin Laura, who lives with her family in the Scottish Highlands. As the London mail draws into Inverness, he sees the surly sleeping-car attendant trying to rouse an unresponsive young man. He is compelled, firstly, to point out that the passenger is dead, and secondly to pick up the newspaper that has slipped onto the compartment floor. On it the deceased, who appears to have drunk himself into oblivion, has scrawled an elusive poem about a paradise guarded by ‘singing sand’. Grant is soon fascinated by the hopes and dreams of the dead man with ‘tumbled black hair and ... reckless eyebrows’. And though he has planned to do nothing in Scotland but fish, he cannot help but act on the growing suspicion that a far more sinister story is waiting to be uncovered ...

The Singing Sands is produced in series with A Shilling for Candles, Miss Pym Disposes and The Daughter of Time.

Winner of the Silver Medal (book category) in the Illustrators 57 competition at the Society of Illustrators in New York

About the Illustrator

Mark Smith

Mark Smith’s work has been recognised by all the major industry award panels, including Communication Arts, SPD, the V&A Illustration Awards and the UK Association of Illustrators. He has also achieved repeated recognition for his work on the Folio Society series of Josephine Tey novels from 3x3 magazine, New York Society of Illustrators, Los Angeles Society of Illustrators, and the American Illustration annual. As well as books, Smith’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and GQ among others.

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About the Illustrator

Mark Smith

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Josephine Tey was the pen-name of Elizabeth MacKintosh, playwright and author of some of the finest detective novels from the Golden Age of crime fiction. She was born in Inverness in 1896, and taught physical education for a number of years before the success of her first book, The Man in the Queue, in 1929. The book introduced her detective protagonist Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard, who would appear in a further five novels: A Shilling for Candles (1936), The Franchise Affair (1948), To Love and Be Wise (1950), The Daughter of Time (1951) and The Singing Sands (1952). Her standalone mysteries include Miss Pym Disposes (1946) and Brat Farrar (1949). Tey also wrote for the theatre, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot, and had a notable success with Richard of Bordeaux in 1932, starring John Gielgud in the title role. She died in 1952, leaving her entire estate to the National Trust.

Val Mcdermid is an award-winning crime writer with over 27 novels to her name, translated into over 40 languages. She grew up in Fife, and after a career in newspaper journalism in Glasgow and Manchester, she published her first crime novel, Report for Murder, in 1987. Notable among her books are The Mermaids Singing (1995) which won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award; A Place of Execution (1999), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Grave Tattoo (2006), winner of the Portico Prize for Fiction. She was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger award in 2010, in recognition of her work.

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