THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR

TITLE: THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR
AUTHOR: JOSEPHINE TEY
Pages: 254
Date: 20/05/2010
Grade: 4.5
Details: no. 3 Alan Grant
Own

This is a charming little mystery in which the leisurely way in which the story is told perfectly matches the sedate, rural setting of it.
Robert Blair is a middle aged country lawyer leading a very predictable and uneventful life when he receives a phone call from Marion Sharpe who urgently requires his assistance in a police matter. Reluctantly Blair travels to The Franchise, the house where Marion and her mother live. There he meets the local police officer as well as Alan Grant from Scotland Yard and a teenager named Betty Kane who accuses the Sharpe women of abducting her, holding her prisoner and physically harming her. And her story is filled with enough detail about the house and the women to make it sound plausible.
Blair however doesn't believe Betty Kane and takes a shine to the Sharpe women. Although he has no experience in criminal law he decides to help them.
But, as the court date comes closer, it seems less and less likely that Blair will find the proof that he needs to disprove the girls story. The defense team in in dire need of a few miracles.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story even though Alan Grant barely features in it, the solution was predictable fro the start and the pace was a bit to leisurely for me at times.
A very well written and comfortable little book though and I will continue hunting secondhand bookstores for the other Alan Grant mysteries.