Inspector Alan Grant: The Full Collection cover art

Inspector Alan Grant: The Full Collection

6 Novels

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Inspector Alan Grant: The Full Collection

By: Josephine Tey
Narrated by: Karen Cass
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £79.99

Buy Now for £79.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Inspector Alan Grant: The Full Collection includes unabridged recordings of all 6 of the novels in the Inspector Alan Grant series from famed crime writer, Josephine Tey.

The novels included here are:

The Man in the Queue - Inspector Alan Grant searches for the identity of a man killed in the line at a theatre and for the identity of the killer—whom no-one saw.

A Shilling for Candles - Beneath the sea cliffs of the south coast, suicides are a sad but common fact. Yet even the hardened coastguard knows something is wrong when a beautiful young film actress is found lying dead on the beach one morning, even though the area is notorious for such incidents.

The Franchise Affair - A town full of colourful characters and an impossible disappearance, all threaded through with Tey’s signature psychological probing.

To Love and Be Wise - The incomparable Inspector Alan Grant returns in the latest addition to our enormously popular Josephine Tey series. As well as all the usual delights of Tey’s writing and the Inspector himself, To Love and Be Wise also features one of the most cunning and surprising twists of any of Tey’s novels.

The Daughter of Time - Still Tey’s most enduringly popular mystery. Can a bed-ridden 20th-century detective solve a 500-year-old crime?

The Singing Sands - 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.

This audiobook is fully indexed. Once downloaded, each book and chapter will be listed so you can easily navigate to the individual section.

Public Domain (P)2023 SNR Audio
Anthologies & Short Stories Mystery Police Procedurals Traditional Detectives Exciting

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Man in the Queue cover art
Brat Farrar cover art
The Adventures of Brother Cadfael cover art
The Ngaio Marsh BBC Radio Collection cover art
A Man Lay Dead cover art
The Wintringham Mystery cover art
Murder at the Dolphin Hotel: A Gripping Cozy Historical Mystery cover art
Miss Pym Disposes cover art
Death of an Author cover art
A Very English Murder cover art
The Amazing Chance cover art
The Theft of the Iron Dogs cover art
Father Paolo Baldi Mysteries cover art
Say It With Poison, Mitchell and Markby Village, Book 1 cover art
Evie Parker Lady Sleuth Mysteries Books 1 & 2 cover art
Murder at Everham Hall cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
The narrator was very good - an odd choice for books with mostly male characters, but she does them well.

Tey is a good writer in that her novels are well-written, but Grant is a terrible detective- he doesn’t do much and, unlike Christie, the answers are mostly given to him.

I read most of these years ago as a teenager, I think only the last two were new to me. This time around, I was appalled by the racism, misogyny, class prejudice, snobbery and condescension on display. I almost stopped listening a few times. ‘The Singing Sands’ was by far the worst: Apparently stabbing women isn’t a crime, doesn’t make the perpetrator a criminal and murdering women generally is ok, if they have been ‘unfaithful’. Tey apparently believes this so strongly that she repeats it several times in this last Grant novel. I probably would have stopped listening if it hadn’t been the last one and I don’t like leaving things unfinished.

On a related note: I found the idea that Scottish Nationalists are terrorists particularly ridiculous and the description of Gaelic speakers in ‘the islands’ probably hasn’t won Tey many fans over there!

Overall, this left a bad taste in my mouth- some works, I think, should either be left in the past or redacted, (and I say this as someone who doesn’t usually believe in censoring the past). At the very least, there should be an explanatory introduction or disclaimer included for modern readers/listeners.

The Man in the Queue was the best and least offensive, followed by Daughter of Time.

I won’t be listening again.

Well written but very dated and unpleasant attitudes

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Narrator sounded bored and didn’t bring the story to life. Shame as I used to enjoy the books

Disappointed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

However, characters constantly using the term 'anyhow' was irritating, as it feels like Americanisation in an otherwise very English story.

Vey's characterisation is brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I like Alan Grant he's an interesting character I've always felt a bit frustrated that the franchise affair is included in the books that described as being Alan Grant books because he's hardly in it and in fact in his case it's a failure. he largely has the wool pulled over his eyes in that case and I really don't think that he would have because all of the investigations that the solicitor does to support the accused women are things that Grant would have done naturally anyway. also it's hard to understand why Scotland yard was brought into the case as it wasn't something that involved important people and certainly at that early stage (when he's brought in) it might have petered out into nothing. I do disagree with people who say it's misogynistic because both the accused and the accuser are in fact females. I know people are inclined to think the story is far fetched but I have known people like Betty and Rose. I've known male versions of them and female versions of them.
Some people might say tje story demonstrates class bias but again both families involved are middle class and not wealthy.
Nevertheless, I do like the other stories more. in particular the last one, Singing Sands which is set in Scotland and also The Man in the queue which does spend some of the narrative in Scotland as well.
Tey's stories have a certain quirkiness that Christie's stories lack. And I particularly like her descriptions of Scotland and London.

Updating my review. Largely enjoyed this but too few Grant stories

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

These stories were a lot of fun. A lot of entertainment packed in one audiobook. The Protagonist is a well developed person who has a real humanity to him.

Great stories, fantastic reader.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great plot lines. Alan Grant's character is very likeable and he exists as a person rather than just a vehicle for the plot.

Excellent storytelling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Have read most of them before but great to hear them as a whole. Well written & read and stand the test of time.

Fabulous collection.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Tey is a masterful writer, plots are brilliant and the language and use of words sublime!

Fabulous writing!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Loved every one of these stories. It’s hard to believe that they were written so long ago.
The narrator was stand out excellent. I’ll be looking out for more books narrated by her.

Great stories and fantastic narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I read the first two stories in the series separately and thoroughly enjoyed them and so I thought this audible collection would be just the thing. However the remaining 4 stories were on the whole disappointing in terms of plot and characterisation. The Franchise Affair had absolutely nothing to do with Grant's detective skills because he was hardly in it at all. I enjoyed it as a story but fail to see how it was an Inspector Grant story. The one about Richard III was again a good story but not because of the character of Grant. I have just started listening to the final story but am not at all engaged with it. The author should have quit while she was ahead after the first two stories.

Disappointing overall

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews