The Singing Sands

"The beasts that talk, the streams that stand, the stones that walk, the singing sand..." - found on an unidentified corpse, herein I enthusiastically recommend the unabridged audio recording by Stephen Thorne. He speaks beautifully; he voice-acted Aslan in the 1979 animated version of THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. As in THE DAUGHTER OF TIME, Grant isn't in the best of health, but this time he's on sick leave for work-related stress (in the form of claustrophobia) rather than physical injury. Unable to sleep on a train journey to Scotland, Grant has the honor of being present when the laziest railway employee in captivity discovers a corpse in a neighbouring compartment, taken at first to be dead drunk rather than merely dead - therefore not only escaping without tipping, but creating more work than 'old Yoghourt' has suffered in many a year. :) That would have been the end of it - a dead man with an unusual face - except that Grant happened to pick up a half-written sonnet in the dead man's compartment: "The beasts that talk,/The streams that stand,/The stones that walk,/The singing sand..." *That* makes a change from Grant's daily round of investigation - what *was* the stranger up to? To Grant's eye for faces is coupled his hobby of analyzing character from handwriting style. (Hey, everybody has the right to be a bit quirky.) Even without the mystery, I'd enjoy this as a novel; Grant is, of course, in Scotland to visit his married cousin Laura whom we heard about in THE DAUGHTER OF TIME. (Personally, if I'd been Tey's editor, I'd have recommended that she make Grant's health-related trip to Scotland the same trip he was planning at the end of his hospital stay in THE DAUGHTER OF TIME, rather than coming up with an unrelated health issue in the very next book.) Grant simultaneously struggles to conquer and conceal his claustrophobia while poking into the open-and-shut case of accidental death his colleagues aren't interested in.

This book is definitely my favourite of the Ins. Grant series. It is truly unfortunate that Ms. Tey was taken from us so young. Just think what she would have written! This book was published posthumously after her untimely death. It is as perfect a mystery as you will ever come across. In the book Grant is going on a holiday. On the train that he has taken to go to Scotland to visit friends, a young man is found dead in his room. It truly looked like misadventure, but something about it disturbed Grant and got him searching a trail that took him to the Hebrides, back to London, and to Marseilles. And what actually got him going on this impossible search were a few lines of poetry scrawled on a newspaper that the young victim had had with him before he died. Wonderful story!

"The Singing Sands" is Tey's most riveting and well-crafted novel. It has more wonderful characters, more variety and beauty in the scenery/locations, and a less intense pace than her other books. It also takes the reader deeper into Grant's psyche than any of the others.Grant is a complex and interesting man, and his Scottish voyage is more than just chasing down a confounding mystery: it is a lonely and revealing internal journey for him, at the end of which he finds resolution and new depths in himself, comfort and at-homeness within.Tey was fascinated with Grant and in "Sands" she explored new aspects of her delicious character, perhaps falling in little in love with him in the process. I know I did.

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard has worked too hard for too long; his flair is giving out on him and he's developed a tendency toward what we, these days, would call panic attacks. He's given the opportunity (or more likely, ordered) to take vacation and decides to visit his cousin in the Scottish Highlands. On the train north, two young men are overheard apparently planning to 'rob the Caley'; later, one of them is found dead, with a strange little verse in his possession. Grant, with his usual fascination for faces, is intrigued by the young man, and winds up inadvertently investigating his death. By the time the book ends, you'll not only meet Grant's cousins, a noted explorer, a very strange Scottish nationalist and get a walking tour of parts of the Highlands and the islands of Scotland, but you'll find out where there really are singing sands, streams that stand and stones that walk. You'll also find out that 'rob the Caley' has nothing to do with the Caledonian (or a Scottish dance party :). Tey's books are lovely slices of post-WWII Britain, a very different time and place. I've always been sorry a younger Sean Connery didn't get given her books for a movie -- he'd have been perfect as Grant.

This (posthumously published) novel shows Tey at her best. Inspector Alan Grant, on his way by train to Scotland for a long-overdue spell of R & R, is on hand when a young man's body is found in an adjoining compartment. By accident, he finds himself in possession of a clue that hints that something wasn't right about the young man's death; in his pursuit of the truth, he travels as far as the Hebrides and meets characters ranging from a lovely widow who looks good in waders to a world-famous Arabian explorer, a young pilot friend of the deceased, and the unforgettable Wee Archie. The story line seems to ramble at times, but the conclusion is highly satisfying. Thoroughly enjoyable.