New Book - Shot With Crimson - Josephine Tey 11 - by Nicola Upson (Pages 1 - 17)

 

First Published: November 7, 2023

The book starts in 1917. 

In the prologue told from the perspective of a Daphne du Maurier, who recalls that at the age of ten she and her family stayed at the home of her parents' friends, which was the inspiration for Mandeley. The house was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. When Daphne went with her sisters and the friends' children to explore, she lost them and found herself in the part where the soldiers were convalescing. Then she saw a man building a model of the house with matchsticks, and the man gave her a model of the gatehouse which he wanted Daphne to give someone, and the man gave her instruction. Daphne ran upstairs, and then she found herself face-to-face with a woman dressed in black and with a strick countenance, who demanded to know what she wanted. This was the inspiration Daphne used for her Mrs Danvers, and at that moment she was scared and ran away without finding the person who she should give the model. She actually kept the model, and when she went to the same place where she saw the man, the model of the house was destroyed.

Then the novel moves forward in time. It is September 1939, and Josephine gets to Southampton by train as she is to embark the Queen Mary to travel to America.