Angel with Two Faces
Josephine Tey • Book 2
by Nicola Upson
Why You'll Love This
Cornwall in the 1930s sounds idyllic — until a funeral, a drowned horseman, and old village secrets make escape impossible.
- Great if you want: atmospheric British crime steeped in rural community and dark history
- The experience: measured and moody — Gothic undercurrents beneath a quiet Cornish surface
- The writing: Upson layers place and psychology carefully, prioritizing depth over pace
- Skip if: you want a fast-moving plot — this book breathes slowly and deliberately
About This Book
Set against the rugged, windswept landscape of Cornwall, this second novel in Nicola Upson's Josephine Tey series takes the real-life playwright and crime writer from the drawing rooms of London into something far darker — a community bound by old secrets, buried loyalties, and violence that refuses to stay in the past. What begins as a restorative visit to a friend's home becomes something altogether more unsettling, as the death of a young man pulls Josephine into the tangled lives of people who have lived too long in each other's shadows. The stakes here are quiet but relentless, and the emotional tension builds in ways that feel genuinely human.
Upson writes Cornwall not as backdrop but as atmosphere — the landscape carries weight, shapes character, and presses in on every scene. Her prose is controlled and confident, never overreaching, with a period detail that feels earned rather than decorative. The structural interplay between Josephine's interior life as a writer and the exterior demands of the mystery gives the novel unusual depth, making it the kind of book that rewards close reading rather than impatient page-turning.
