SYNOPSIS
September, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock's Rebecca.
Then, a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier - a trail that echoes Rebecca's timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder …

MY THOUGHTS
As a massive fan of the book ‘Rebecca’ and and even bigger fan of the 1940’s Hitchcock film adaptation of ‘Rebecca’, I absolutely loved this book! I binged it in two days and couldn’t get enough of it.

I liked the part at the beginning with Du Maurier as a child, and seeing her inspiration for Manderley in the form of another grand house called Milton, and it gives you a sense of what’s to come.

The book is set with multiple POV’s, mostly being from Josephine & DCI Archie, but there is other characters as well, which I thought was great as you really got an idea of everything that was going on.

I though the story itself was really good, and there was so many layers too it which really helped to build a really great plot, and honestly it kept me hooked to the very end, with me being really surprised on how it ended.

I loved the chapters where the filming of ‘Rebecca’ was taking place, I honestly felt like I was fan-girling and behind the scenes of the movie, it was so good!

Really great murder mystery that I would definitely recommend to lovers of ‘Rebecca’!

Thank you again to @netgalleyuk for the ARC

I don't think that I have read Nicola Upson's books before - how I have missed out ! I will have to start at the beginning of the series and spend my winter with Josephine Tey. A delightfully old fashioned (classic) Agatha Christie vibe book. I loved it.

I love how Nicola Upson mixes fictional and historical characters creating vivid, entertaining, and well plotted mystery.
I love how she developed her own version of Josephine Tey and loved this story that refers to a great novel like Rebecca, Hollywood and a cast of very interesting characters.
She's a talented storyteller and I couldn't put down this story
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Very character driven crime that is interspersed with fictional representations of real people- in this case Hitchcock and other Hollywood actors- and an intriguing story. Marta makes an excellent detective and the sense of place and time is spot on.

Why didn’t I know this? Only after finishing the book, which by the way was a fabulous read, did I find out that this is the 11th, yes 11th, book in the Josephine Tey Series. I was aware of this real life crime writer but the fact that she was the main fictional protagonist in a series of books had completely passed me by. From this dear reader you will deduce that this book read well as a stand-alone! The prologue takes place in 1917 in Milton House which has been turned into a hospital for injured soldiers. 10 year old Daphne du Maurier is visiting the house and is asked by an orderly to take a message to someone for him. Fast forward and it is now September 1939 and the country is in the midst of another world war.

Briefly, Josephine travels on Queen Mary to visit her partner in Hollywood where she is working on the Hitchcock film Rebecca. Meanwhile back at Milton House a body has been found and suspicion is that one of the film crew in Hollywood may have been involved. DCI Archie Penrose is sent to investigate the murder whilst Josephine is investigating in Hollywood and feeding back to her friend Archie.

Brilliantly mixing fact with fiction the author has produced a golden age style detective fiction novel that had some good twists and turns and was a very good read. I was more engaged in the story taking place in Los Angeles as I am pretty obsessed with Rebecca, both the book and the Hitchcock film. But the two settings worked well together and the threads met seamlessly at the end. A very enjoyable book, well paced with excellent characters and good misdirection which caught me out.

This is a brilliant new instalment in Nicola Upson's 'Golden Age' crime series featuring Josephine Tey as detective. It's a genius idea to have an actual crime writer as a detective, something that Upson has sustained beautifully over 11 books - 'Shot with Crimson' being the latest.

I've followed this series from the start and was delighted to be granted a copy of 'Shot with Crimson' for review by NetGalley. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

This book takes us into a world poised on the edge of the terrors of World War II. It's September 1939 and - as war is declared - Josephine Tey is headed to Hollywood on a transatlantic voyage to meet her partner who is working on the film version of 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. As her journey becomes suddenly more dangerous, DCI Archie Penrose remains in newly-at-war England to try to unravel a crime that also has its own links to 'Rebecca'; it centres on the house that inspired Daphne du Maurier who herself appears in some flashback scenes to when the property was used as a hospital in the first war. As past secrets begin to surface, it becomes apparent that Josephine and Archie have different perspectives on the same story…

I loved that 'Rebecca' was so central to this novel. While I don't actually love 'Rebecca' (I know, I know….shocking!), it is so cleverly integrated into Upson's own novel. The fact that Upson can weave together her own mystery with real-life people and events is truly impressive and seamlessly done. The reader is treated to an insight into a 1939 movie set, complete with cast, on-set tensions, Hollywood executives - and the Hitchcocks, who have appeared before in Upson's series. It made me want to Google everything 'Rebecca'-related and dig out a copy of the 1940 film! There is evidence of some serious research here on Upson's part and the period detail is on point (as with this whole series).

It should also be noted that 'Rebecca' is the PERFECT book and film for Upson to use as a backdrop for her own mystery. All of Daphne du Maurier's key themes and ideas - gender inequality, murder, jealousy, past misdeeds, hidden secrets - are all writ large in Upson's book too. I also loved that the house that inspired Manderley in 'Rebecca' also got a starring role, as did the young novelist herself.

As with all of Upson's novels, the mystery is far from straightforward in moral terms; the reader is left to grapple with some real grey areas in terms of the punishment fitting the crimes especially in light of the outdated attitudes of the time. As with previous books, Upson uses elements of the story to highlight tragedies in LGBTQ+ lives in an intolerant and hostile world and it is - quite frankly - heartbreaking.

This is an absolute gem in an already fabulous series - the mystery is well-constructed as it plays out on both sides of the Atlantic and I'm always totally sold on a book that features a transatlantic journey on a huge, glitzy ship! If you're a fan of Upson's books, 'Rebecca', 1930s crime novels, Golden Age mysteries with a contemporary twist, retro Hollywood glamour or just clever plotting, I think this might just be your thing.

Also, just as an observation, this was a tricky review to write without completely over-using the phrase 'Golden Age' - of detective novels, of Hollywood, of transatlantic travel…this book really does combine the best of the best!

As a fan of the novel Rebecca and its 1940 adaptation, a book about a murder mystery on the set of the film sounded like just my kind of thing. One of the main characters is a fictionalised version of classic crime author Josephine Tey. She is travelling to America to meet with her lover who is working on Alfred Hitchock's version of Rebecca at the start of the narrative. Meanwhile part of the film crew is visiting an old estate in England which is thought to have inspired Manderley in Rebecca. And that's where the book loses its direction and focus. The novel is then split between several different characters (Josephine, a police detective, and a member of the film crew) and never really finds its feet. There are too many subplots and characters unnecessary to the storyline that could easily have been pruned. Also, the "shocking act of violence" taken from the blurb does not occur on the set of Rebecca; in fact, remarkably little time is spent on the set in the book. Sadly, the overall effect is rather messy and leaves Josephine feeling like something of a surplus character. As this is part of a long-running series of books and I haven't read any others, it may be beneficial to catch up with the previous titles before diving into Shot with Crimson. Despite its intriguing premise though, I just couldn't get into the book and was a bit frustrated at all the subplots.

'Shot with Crimson' is another great instalment in Nicola Upson's historical detective series featuring the real-life Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey. Once again, Upson combines other well-known figures and events from this period with a fictional mystery.

It is 1939 and the start of the Second World War, and as the novel begins, Josephine is saying goodbye to her close friend Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose as she boards a ship to join her lover Marta in Hollywood where she is working on Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca'. No sooner has Josephine set sail than Archie is called to investigate a murder at Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire, a stately home that is being used for military training - but was also the inspiration for du Maurier's Manderley. Archie suspects that the army may be trying to cover something up - but the truth may lie in events that took place over two decades before when Milton Hall was used to house wounded soldiers and a young Daphne du Maurier visited the house for the first time...

Over on the other side of the Atlantic, Marta is trying to keep the peace on the set of 'Rebecca' where tensions are rising between Hitchcock and the producer David Selznick. Meanwhile, Josephine is increasingly concerned about a young woman who is determined to get her revenge on the Hitchcock family for her father's death, and a troubled young man she has met on her journey whose story may be relevant to Archie's investigation, Working across two continents (and with a little bit of help from Daphne du Maurier herself), Archie, Josephine and Marta must piece together the various clues that hold the key to what happened at Milton Hall.

As with Upson's previous novels in this series, its pleasures are twofold. Firstly, we are given another ingenious and well-plotted whodunnit. The use of different settings and at least five different characters' perspectives helps to keep us hooked throughout and, even if there are a few extraordinary coincidences that help Archie to finally unravel the mystery, the solution is still satisfying. However, for me this is secondary to all the meticulously researched historical detail Upson includes, allowing us to discover the original Manderley and go behind the scenes on a Hitchcock film. This novel is also deeply concerned with war, both the long shadow cast by WW1 and the anxieties experienced at the start of WW2, both of which are deftly and sensitively handled.

Overall, this is another brilliant read - thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC to review.

In 1917, a wounded soldier in a military hospital apparently shot himself. Suicide or murder? Don’t risk scandal! In 1939 the conspiracy of silence starts to crack. The military hospital was housed in Milton Hall, a stately home in Cambridgeshire and the soldier, Michael, was the son of the Housekeeper. He had formed a close friendship with James, a medical orderly – illegally close – which was why his mother had confined him to a room away from the rest. But she had briefly left the room because she had been distracted by a ten-year-old girl visiting the family for the summer. The girl was Daphne du Maurier, who would later use Milton as model for Manderley and the fearsome Housekeeper as a model for Mrs Danvers. James had been transferred away after the incident but had always felt the loss. In 1939, shortly after the outbreak of WWII, James was working as a set and model builder for Alfred Hitchcock, now based in Hollywood and filming “Rebecca”. He and a small second-unit crew had been sent to take some interiors shots of Milton for use in the film, and he seized the opportunity to try and find, and question, the old Housekeeper, still living in the grounds. This goes dramatically wrong, but, fortunately for him, the second-unit have to swiftly return to LA and are booked aboard the RMS Queen Mary. Also on the ship are Josephine Tey, the famous crime writer, Hitchcock’s wife and daughter, and assorted film stars. Josepine is taking the chance to meet her partner, Marta, who is a production assistant on “Rebecca”, before all travelling is suspended because of the war. She stops James from jumping in front of a train and thus becomes enmeshed in his problems. Meanwhile, back at Milton Hall, a body has been found and DCI Penrose, Josephine’s friend with whom she has previously worked, is assigned to investigate. So the two of them are gathering information on the same case, but unaware of this for several days.
This is the 11th Josephine Tey novel in the Historical-Crime genre but works perfectly well as a stand-alone. As usual it mixes reality with fiction, which means the reader can have a whole separate game of find the real people – I’ll give you a start: Daphne Du Maurier is real and was really at Milton Hall, aged ten, in the summer of 1917. The author does a marvellous job of weaving her fictional characters in with the real people, places and events of the autumn and early winter of 1939 which she has meticulously researched. The writing style is also faithful to the actual books written by Josephine Tey. The plot appears fairly simple at first but becomes much more complicated and challenging as details emerge from the two separate investigators. It become a case of who did what, and with which, and to whom. In solving the case I was always one step behind, catching up only at the reveal stage, which is rare for me and merits the 5 stars. This is definitely one of the better stories in this excellent series.

Josephine sets sail to Hollywood to visit Marta while she works on Hitchcock's Rebecca. Her journey is eventful enough with preventing a suicide and meeting an enemy's of the Hitchcock family. So when she finally gets to the troubled set Josephine is probably ready for a quiet time. Instead Archie calls as his current murder case has links to the film crew and suddenly Josephine finds herself in the middle of things with a murder suspect.

Really enjoyed this addition to the series. Main characters Josephine and Archie are as interesting as ever but it's the side characters such as the Hitchcock's and Daphne du Maurier that really hold the attention and move the story along.

I continue to be fascinated by Nicola Upson’s ability to blend fact and fiction, imagined and real characters and the her emphasis on the past not being another country but a living and relevant reality.

While I continue to have some reservations about the central relationship between Josephine and Marta, I have learned to thole it-as Ms Tey might have said- and in the the reading of this latest instalment, I put aside my feeling that a trip to the USA at this time is not what one would expect of the historical Tey..

More difficult to ignore is the appearance of the Hitchcocks and the footling side-plot of a woman with a grudge against them which added little to my overall enjoyment.

The main mystery was nicely-handled with a neat twist and the interplay of past and present which is an enduring theme of this series was well-done.

A strong entry in the series and I look forward eagerly to the next.

Thank you to NetGalley ,and to Faber and Faber for the digital review copy.

I’ve read a few of Nicola Upson’s ‘Josephine Tay’ books (‘though not her recent ones) and enjoyed them.
This one opens in 1917 with a young Daphne du Maurier visiting Milton Hall, a property that later became the inspiration for Manderley.
Blurring fact and fiction Upson then sets the seeds of a mystery that will lead many years later to murder.
Fast forward to the beginning of WWII and Josephine is sailing to America on the Queen Mary to meet up with Marta who is working with Hitchcock on the filmset of Rebecca.
Subsequently much of the book involves Hitchcock’s family, career and working relationships, particularly between him and David O. Selznick.
Interesting though that was, I felt it distracted from the murder investigation taking place back in England by Josephine’s great friend Archie Penrose to the extent I was more involved in what was happening on the film set than the crime and its back history.
The author portrays the fear of forthcoming war really well particularly in the voyage over and the characters are interesting and believable. Also there are enough little sub plots to keep the action moving along nicely.

Many thanks to NetGalley & Faber for an ARC

Another masterpiece from Nicola Upson!
The way she can weave a fictional murder through the lives of real people is extraordinary and makes for a really interesting read. I find I can’t stop myself from checking whether certain events in the book did really happen or if they are part of the ‘story’. The amount of research that must have been undertaken by Nicola before she even puts pen to paper is awe inspiring, and to come up with an intricate murder mystery to boot is just astonishing.
Obviously I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend.

This is another great novel from Nicola Upson using her great talent of combining real historical events with a good story. This is the 11th in her Josephine Tey series but works well as a stand-alone book too. In Shot With Crimson we see Josephine travel on the Queen Mary liner from London to New York shortly after the start of World War II. She is travelling to meet her partner, Marta, who is working in Hollywood on the set of Rebecca which is being directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Back in England, three men from Hitchcock’s team are filming in Milton Hall near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire which was the inspiration for Daphne du Maurier’s house Manderley - the centrepiece of Rebecca. The three men are on their way back to Hollywood when a murder is discovered at Milton Hall. Coincidentally Josephine is travelling from New York to Los Angeles on the same train as three men and witnesses some things that become significant later in the novel.

I enjoyed this book but at times was a little unsure as to who was speaking as there were a lot of characters speaking with their speech all on one line at times.

.With thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Nicola Upson's latest in her historical Josephine Tey series is set in 1939, paying homage to Daphne du Maurier, and her classic Rebecca, and Norfolk's Elizabethan Milton Hall that inspired Manderley. As a child, Daphne, with her family, were on holiday there, when it was being used as a military hospital, she carries out a favour for a 'conchie' orderly, James Bartholomew, running into the housekeeper who later helped shape her vision of Mrs Danvers. Tey is boarding the packed Queen Mary to join Marta in Hollywood, who is assisting Hitchcock in the filming of Rebecca, strewn with problems and conflict with the producer, David Selznick, and Hitch's unorthodox and manipulative direction of actress Joan Fontaine. There is no escaping the war on the Atlantic crossing, Tey bumps into Alma Reville, Hitch's wife, with her mother and daughter, Patricia, and is present when a griefstricken Lee Hessel confronts Alma.

At Dearborn station, Tey is involved in a incident with Hitch's troubled but gifted model maker, Bartholomew, returning from Milton Hall, where his emotional triggers were pushed by the elderly Marion, resulting in him behaving in a way that is so out of character that he is plunged into a state of darkness. Back in England, DCI Archie Penrose is making his way to Milton Hall which is now being used as a base for special operations, he is on a delicate mission to solve the brutal and grisly murder of Eve Young, her body found in woodland. The army are keen to protect the soldiers from being seen as suspects, there is the resentful, jealous and bitter husband, Donald, and possibly members of a film crew that have since returned to the US. Tey liaises with Penrose in what is rather a twisted investigation that leads to a surprising conclusion.

Upson has clearly engaged with deep, indepth research in her adroit blend of fact and fiction, a narrative littered with numerous real characters from the period, including Bob Hope, Clark Gable, and du Maurier herself, involved in a London theatre production of Rebecca with Margaret Rutherford as Mrs Danvers. This is a wonderful read, capturing the turbulence that comes with the start of WW2, and an insightful glimpse into Hitch's family life and the process of filming Rebecca in Hollywood. Fans of du Maurier's Rebecca are likely to adore this historical addition to the series with its echoes of themes from the original novel. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Thanks NetGalley and Faber & Faber for ARC.

Full disclosure - I've read and enjoyed all the previous books in this series, with one possible exception. Upson's fiction weaves the little available biographical information about Josephine Tey with a keen understanding of the period and Tey's milieu in fiction and theatre, creating a rich world.

It's 1939 and Tey is on her way to California, despite the ugly forces at play in Europe. She has work to do and Marta Fox is there, once again working for the Hitchcocks who are beginning filming on Rebecca. Meantime, in Norfolk, DCI Archie Penrose is called to investigate a suspicious death in a Norfolk stately home, once the inspiration for Manderley, now coopted by the military as war breaks out again.

Of course, as this is a crime novel, the two stories and multiple timelines weave together, and it remains atmospheric and compelling throughout, no matter how threadbare the weft is on occasion. Loved it.
I notice at least one other reviewer has carefully pointed out that this novel contains spoilers to both Du Maurier's 1938 novel and Hitchcock's 1940 film. As this novel is a work of fiction, although that may be true, I don't think it's a problem at all. Your engagement and surprise in going to either for the first time will not be dampened by this clever tribute.

We've reached the start of WW2 now in Nicola Upson's series about the fictional adventures of the real-life Josephine Tey, and this time we have a mystery set across two continents and the return of the Hitchcocks to the series. This time the film that's being worked on is Rebecca and back in England Archie is trying to solve a murder at the house that inspired Manderley. As ever with this series, they are a bit bleaker than your average historical mystery, but this one is at least less awful than the solution to the previous one. Well a bit. But it's an engrossing read, but just don't think that these are cozy historicals!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for an advance copy of Shot with Crimson, the eleventh novel to feature a fictionalised Josephine Tey, set in 1939.

Josephine travels to Hollywood to spend time with her partner Marta Fox, who is working on the set of Hitchcock’s latest film, based on Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca. Meanwhile her friend, Chief Inspector Archie Penrose is sent to Milton Hall, the house that inspired the novel, to investigate some serious crime.

I have mixed feelings about Shot with Crimson. On the one hand it is wonderfully atmospheric, but on the other I found it slow and a bit of a slog at times. The narrative is split between Josephine in Hollywood and Archie in England. At the time international calls were very expensive, so there is not much contact between them. Instead they come at the same story from different angles and priorities. I was amazed at how well it works, building a narrative from different perspectives and working from the present situation to find its roots in past hurt and emotion.

As I said there are times when the novel is slow going, but, boy, does it have a story to tell. There are explosive truths and, in a sense, even more explosive misconceptions and emotions and several excellent twists. Sometimes, though, that explosiveness gets masked by a welter of emotional analysis and period detail. I was particularly struck by the author’s ability to bring the character’s beliefs about people to life and show how these beliefs affect their behaviour, even if the beliefs are no more than delusions. It’s powerful.

While in Hollywood Josephine spends time on the Rebecca set. I haven’t read the book or watched the film, so I wasn’t particularly interested, but I like the link between the events at Milton Hall and the film as it fits the two perspectives and the events. I don’t recognise some of the character names, like Joan Fontaine (apparently an Oscar winning actress), and that is a bit of a downside to the mixing of real and fictional characters, knowing who is real and who isn’t.

Shot with Crimson is a good read that I can recommend.

I have read this author before and enjoyed the books so was very pleased to get an ARC for this book. If you don't like Daphne Du Maurier and Rebecca you might not like this. Rebecca is one of my favourite books so all well.
I didn't like the first piece in italics but once the story got going I really enjoyed it. Very evocative of the time and well written.
3.5/5 stars

'Shot with Crimson' by Nicola Upson.
September, 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock's Rebecca . Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier - a trail that echoes Rebecca 's timeless themes of obsession, jealousy and murder.
I love this series of books because they involve a lot of classic Hollywood stars. In this book you get everyone from Hitchcock to a small cameo from Clark Gable.
The story itself is a fantastic mystery intertwined in a few different stories that come together spectacularly in the books finale.
If you love cosy crime mixed with Hollywood then give this book a go. And I would definitely recommend the authors previous books.
Thankyou you to NetGallery UK, the publishers and the author for letting me read this book in return for an honest review.