Dear Little Corpses is written against the backdrop of the beginning of WW2, the time of mass evacuations of children to the countryside. A mothers worst nightmare is realised. Her beloved daughter has vanished. The setting for this story - a typically quintessential English village complete with Summer Fete - is evocatively written and this adds to the menacing tone of the events that unfold. Upson really knows how to draw the reader in and this is a well crafted tale. With a myriad of twists and turns this page turner certainly keeps you guessing.
Thank you to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for the e-ARC to review in exchange for an honest review.

Nicola Upson's latest title in her series opens as children are being evacuated from London. The country is on the brink of war.
Josephine Tey is in Suffolk trying to come to terms with the changes war is going to bring.
Her village is an evacuation site and in the chaos a local child disappears. As the villagers search for her, they are also welcoming children from London and the chaos that brings.
The story starts slowly reflecting the lull before the coming storm of war before the story gathers pace towards the end.
An enjoyable read that will appeal to fans of the Golden Age of crime writing.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and Nicola Upson for the chance to read and review this book.

I had not realised that it was part of a series or that some of the characters were based on real life people - I should have realised that I recognised some of the names to be honest, However this did not detract from enjoying the story and wanting to get to the end to find out what had happened

As with all detective and crime novels there are always distractions and red herrings and this did not disappoint on that front though I had worked out that the obvious culprit wasn't obvious at all.

It was an easy read and interesting to read about the evacuation of London's youngsters and the start of WW2 and Wilkins Jams of Tiptree which have often graced my table.

Of course the storyline was sad - but it was the final paragraph that tore at me most - tragic

Thank you again to all involved in this book - I thoroughly enjoyed it

so nice to go back in time to a life during or the beginning of the war and feel the differences between the city and country. a sad topic but well written. i liked this book but it dint have me on the edge.

I was drawn to "Dear Little Corpses" by Nicola Upson as I sometimes enjoy a Golden Age mystery but unfortunately this one didn't do it for me. I hadn't realised that this was part of a series, and can imagine that if you know the characters then the narrative is more enjoyable. It was quite pedestrian up until nearly the end when most of the "action" happened but by then I was really interested. Not for me.

what a satisfying, complete and well-written book this is, the first by Nicola Upson that I have read but it won't be the last. I loved the use of Josephine Tey and other golden-age crime writers in solving this mystery of a disappearance by a young girl. There is enough back-story given to make this fine as a stand-alone novel. The setting is sleepy rural England in 1939 with the onset of war bringing worry to what seems an otherwise idyllic existence. But scratch the surface and things are very different. This is slow, character-led crime that doesn't rush through golden scenes and I enjoyed every word.

This is the tenth book by this author featuring the "Golden Age" crime fiction author Josephine Tay. The use of Tay as heroine is interesting as there is so little known about her.
Josephine usually lives with her father in Scotland, however she has been left a small cottage in a Suffolk village close to the Essex border. Sharing her life is an actress Marta who is about to fly out to America to appear in an Alfred Hitchcock film.
It's 1939 and with an impending war, London is looking to evacuate children to the countryside. The Vicar's wife in Josephine's village has organised homes for some of these children. However when the coaches arrive very late there are more children to house than expected. There is chaos trying to sort this situation out not helped when the local summer fete has also been going on.
Josephine and Marta share a bedroom in the small cottage, but propriety needs them to say that with only two bedrooms they can't take a child in. Because of the confusion they reluctantly agree to take in a boy when his sister is accommodated elsewhere.
The following day one of the village families who took two children in, their daughter has gone missing as the mother thought she was with her grandmother. Josephine's friend Detective chief inspector Archie Penrose is visiting and takes charge of the search for the missing five year old. Archie is based in London and is already investigating a murder of a rent collector.
An interesting and well written book, illustrating the sadness and emotion of this time. There is an appearance of another Golden Age author - Marjorie Allingham, supposedly living in a neighbouring village.
It is all well put together and makes for a very good read.

A very gentle murder mystery written in the Agatha Christie style. Set at the beginning of the 2nd world war when children are being evacuated away from the big cities to small rural areas. A well observed piece of life at that time.
Thank you to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for the advance copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.
If you are a fan of historical.crime fiction and Agatha Christie, then this one is a must read.! Set in Suffolk, at the start if WW2, a small village is disrupted by the arrival of a multitude of evacuees and the disappearance of one of their own children. Local residents Marta and Josephine, are drawn into the situation and become key figures (along with friend and detective Archie Penrose) in solving the disappearance. Not as cosy a crime as you might expect! A 1 sitting read for me!

Set in the lead up to WW2, child evacuees arrive in a peaceful, English village preparing for it’s annual fete. Josephine Tey is an author, whose cottage in the village provides a safe haven for herself and her publicly-undeclared, lover, Marta. All seem a world away from the fears and tensions of a country preparing for war but a dreadful reality intrudes, with the disappearance of a little girl in the midst of the bustle of the evacuees arrival.

This is an evocative picture of a village dealing with the worst that can happen to a family at a time of national crisis. Beautifully written, Miss Tey and her friends are well drawn, believable characters, based on real figures, sympathetically portrayed. The action develops inexorably to a terrifying conclusion where all the certainties, prejudices and mores of pre-war England come under the microscope of Nicola Upson’s excellent novel

This is a thoroughly enjoyable historical crime novel. Dear Little Corpses is Nicola Upson’s latest novel in her brilliant series featuring the novelist and playwright, Josephine Tey and I think it is possibly her best yet. Although it is part of a series, it is entirely possible to read this as a stand-alone.
The book is set right on the eve of WWII as the country waits for war to be declared. It opens with three apparently unconnected scenes, a murder victim is discovered in a block of flats in London, a family say goodbye to their 5 year old daughter as the evacuation of children begins and in Suffolk, Josephine and her lover Marta are preparing to help with the arrival of the evacuees.
The scene setting and historical detail is brilliant and you really get a feel for what it might have been like in September 1939. The story unfolds very gradually which allows you time to get to know the cast of characters many of whom have their dark secrets. I loved the introduction of Margery Allingham into the novel and the new friendship between her and Josephine was delightful. The plot is brilliantly worked out and as the story develops, we see how the three opening scenes are in fact, connected after all.
I would definitely recommend this book and am grateful to Net Galley and the publishers, Faber and Faber for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

When I was offered the chance to read this I didn't realize it was in a series so I went back and read the previous nine books which really showed how Nicola Upson just gets better and better with each book. Her heroine Josephine They ( a very real historical figure) continues to live her life as a playwright/author and occasional helper in the solving of crimes to her friend Archie Penrose. Her own relationship with lover Marta is expanded upon with each book and opens a window into a part of society in the 1930's/40's that was often overlooked or ignored. Upsons ability to interweave world events and real historical figures puts her books in a league of their own as far as the interpersonal relationships of both real and imagine characters is concerned.She is comparable in my opinion to Sarah Waters for her exploration of same sex relationships in a time when while prevalent especially among the acting community such trysts were not talked about.

How I love reading mystery novels. I’m so glad I was approved to read this one. Set in wartime England about a young evacuee who goes missing. Would recommend this to anyone.

This book is set at the start of the second World War. Everything is uncertain, unknown and frighteningly familiar for the older characters as it is not that long since the last war. Children from London and other cities are being evacuated into the countryside. The village of Polstead, where Josephine Tey and her partner, Marta have their holiday cottage, receives an influx of more evacuees than expected. Amidst the confusion and turmoil, a local young girl goes missing. Josephine’s friend, Archie (Detective Chief Inspector Penrose) is visiting for the upcoming village fete so is on hand to help with the search.

It is hard not to give any spoilers but the book is impossible to put down. The search for the young girl and the truth of what happened are gripping and complex. The added atmosphere of impending war and separation from loved ones only increases the tension and mood of the book. I love that Upson uses a real author as her main protagonist and it was a delight to find that Margery Allingham was also a character in this story. Another excellent read from Nicola Upson and I can’t wait for the next one.

'Dear Little Corpses' is another brilliant addition to Nicola Upson's historical crime series featuring the real-life Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey. This novel is set at the start of September 1939 as war is declared and hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated from London to villages such as Polstead in Suffolk where Josephine Tey is now living. Upson constructs a compelling mystery which begins with the disappearance of a child and threatens to unearth many other secrets which have lain buried for decades.

The novel initially unfolds at a leisurely pace, building intrigue by introducing a wide range of different perspectives, the connections between which are not immediately clear. The disappearance itself comes as quite a surprise even though it has been signposted, and at this point the story gathers far more urgency. There are plenty more twists along the way, and the the dénouement is satisfyingly unexpected.

There is lots more to appreciate in this novel than simply the plot, however. Upson's attention to historical detail is, as ever, first-rate, as she captures the pain and trauma involved in this forced separation of so many parents and children, as well as the mixed feelings of many in the countryside who are required to take them in. The village setting is convincingly brought to life and avoids feeling hackneyed or twee. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Upson's writing is the moral seriousness with which she writes about crime: there is genuine warmth in her stories, but she never allows them to become too cosy.

Some familiar characters return, including Tey's partner Marta and her detective friend Archie Penrose, but Tey's fellow Golden-Age writer Margery Allingham also makes a welcome entrance and plays a small but important role in helping to solve this mystery - I hope we get to see more of her in future instalments (perhaps the two of them could team up with Dorothy L Sayers who is also referenced as living nearby...)

Overall, I very much enjoyed this novel and will look forward to Miss Tey's next outing. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for sending me an ARC to review!

Josephine Tey is settled in her life as war begins.
Evacuation day arrives and different people converge on the Suffolk village where she is happy. All is not what it seems though and the villagers hide some terrible secrets.
This book drew me in and drew the most amazing picture of life in September 1939.

Absolutely loved this gentle, murder mystery. The style and wonderful historic detail was delightful. Despite having read none of the previous books in the series this was a lovely stand alone read. Will certainly look out for more.

Set at the beginning of World War II in 1939 when thousands of children are being evacuated from London without their parents, something was going to happen….it did! Dear Little Corpses follows the story of the disappearance of a young girl in a small village in Suffolk.

Heartbreaking, Devastating and shocking, my first experience of Nicola Upson absolutely won’t be my last!! Someone told me when I said I had this book on my TBR list that if I hadn’t discovered the Josephine Tey series yet, I was missing out….and quite honestly, yep I have been!

This story was slow clevery written it kept me guessing with every new twist and turn and whilst I’d love to give examples of this it is so very easy to spoil the plot of this one so my brief synopsis at the start will have to do until you find out for yourself!

But as my first experience of Nicola Upson’s reading style I loved the way she made a complicated storyline where you have to follow the stories of several families a pleasure to read, which is such a skill in itself but to weave those together to make a cohesive complete story was amazing!

The story develops gradually I found over the first half of the book which I think actually helped make the characters of the story much more human and from about the mid point….hold onto your hats because I guarantee you will not be able to put it down!

Thanks to Faber & Faber for providing a Netgalley copy of the book free of charge. All opinions are my own

I hadn’t realised that this is number 10 in a series and I may not have picked it up had I done so. I guess it could be read as a stand alone novel, but I feel I would enjoy the characters even more if I had read the previous ones.
Although this series is subtitled Josephine Fey , she is not the detective. In fact she is a crime writer who has a female lover. In the setting of 1939 this would have been something kept under wraps, but must have been quite prevalent. After all there were a generation of women whose potential husbands had died in the killing fields of the Somme and elsewhere.
War is just about to break out, but preparations were underway to evacuate children from cities. On the day two buses unload there human cargo in the village, a local girl goes missing and the story develops well, although the pacing could have been tightened in the first half.
This pulls at so many emotions with the current conflict in Ukraine and also the fact that my mum was an evacuee. Sadly she is no longer around for me to get her memories.
Yet another really interesting novel I found through Netgalley. My thanks to them, the author and publisher for the opportunity to read this. The fact I received this for review has not influenced my opinions at all.

An idyll shattered on the cusp of war.

This competent historical novel, set at the beginning of the Second World War, was read and reviewed even as the opening stages of the war in Ukraine were unfolding. But the atmosphere it evokes is quite different:
Britain in September 1939 may have been about to endure a siege by U-boat in the following years, but it was not under siege yet. Wages and living standards may seem quite poor to us, but they were so much better (and so many more people were receiving them) than in the period just after the Great War or in the Great Depression that other authors (who were there at the time) would come to look back at 1939 as a mini golden age. It was even possible to fly to America (“from Southampton” i.e. by flying boat), something that had only just happened and which (though the NAZIs did not realise this in time) completely changed the balance of power in the world. On the one hand, most of the characters in the story are anxious about the impending war, but on the other hand the little luxuries that make life bearable are still widely available (after a long period where they couldn’t be afforded) even if international flights are an expensive novelty. The author captures these contrasts very well.

It is a murder mystery and the twists in the plot are quite major and come at just the right moment, rather than being constant and intended to keep the reader in a state of tension. There’s a difference, too, between feeling guilt and being guilty which is very shocking but also very true to life. The upheaval caused by the mass evacuation of children from the big cities provides an opportunity for two shocking crimes, but also an opportunity for justice to be served over other crimes which had gone unnoticed before that upheaval.

Two central older female characters are lesbians. This isn’t wokism: there were indeed lots of all female couples and households after the Great War and, unlike in the period after the Second World War, the situation was quietly understood and in general nothing was ever said. The two lesbian characters worry (only slightly) about a scandal, and it may be realistic that they should have worried, but the situation was commonplace; it was NEVER illegal and as George Orwell would one day remark, “the worst insult in the English language is ‘nosey parker!’” Or, at least it was before the Second World War and the Cold War. The author does not show people taking lesbianism for granted, but she is at least realistic in the way that none of her other characters choose to see anything amiss about two ladies old enough to have lost fiances, living together and being openly fond of each other.

This is a very good book.