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Miss Pym Disposes | 
 enlarge | Author: Josephine Tey
Publisher: Touchstone
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 97881
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0684847515
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780684847511
ASIN: 0684847515
Publication Date: August 18, 1998
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Product Description
Miss Lucy Pym, a popular English psychologist, is guest lecturer at a physical training college. The year's term is nearly over, and Miss Pym -- inquisitive and observant -- detects a furtiveness in the behavior of one student during a final exam. She prevents the girl from cheating by destroying her crib notes. But Miss Pym's cover-up of one crime precipitates another -- a fatal "accident" that only her psychological theories can prove was really murder.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Baffling! September 14, 2008
Perhaps my copy of this novel has the last chapter missing.
I very much enjoyed two of Josephine Tey's other novels:Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair. Both were brilliant, especially Brat Farrar.
So I was keen to read this book, an earlier novel. About half-way through this novel, I was ready to give up: there was no mystery, no crime in sight. The atmosphere of a women's college in post-war Britain was interesting, and the characters, drawn with a sure, light touch, were intriguing, but this was not quite enough to hold me. [SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!] And then a fascinating villain appears: an ambitious, dishonest, and thoroughly mediocre student named Rouse. In fact, Rouse is not mediocre; she is the worst student in the class; she achieves mediocrity only through elaborate cheating. There quickly follows a sudden, surprising, and utterly mysterious event: The Head of the college, Miss Hodge, who has devoted her life to building up the reputation of the school (Leys College) and who has won the devotion and respect of the entire faculty, does something completely out-of-character -- a Crazy Action. She chooses Rouse to fill the coveted position at Arlinghurst, the best Girl's School in the country. Why Rouse? Now I was completely hooked. The entire faculty (except Miss Hodge)sees right through this Rouse, this ruse, and knows that she is the worst possible choice. Rouse will be a disaster at Arlinghurst. Thoroughly unsuitable and unqualified, she will be dismissed within a year. But the damage to the reputation of Leys College will be permanent. Miss Hodge will have destroyed her life's work in one swipe, as she has already destroyed the trust and respect of her own staff and students. What has caused Miss Hodge to act so irrationally? A mini-stroke? (she is a little overweight.) I'm thinking that it has to be blackmail. Rouse must have some awful hold on Miss Hodge.
But no. The Crazy Action is never explained. Up until the last page, I was convinced that the mystery of the Crazy Action would be revealed. But it is never mentioned. We are supposed to believe that it was simply poor judgment on Miss Hodge's part. She just poked her eyes out for no apparent reason. The last third of the book is taken up with another thing: A serious crime is committed, a result of the Crazy Action. And amateur sleuth, Miss Pym, discovers who-done-it. There is a powerful, strange twist at the end. But who cares about the crime! It is miss-direction. The main mystery of the story is: What caused the Crazy Action which precipitated the crime! Miss Pym muses about "first causes" of tragedy. Yet the author herself ignores the first cause of this plot. Miss Pym frets over her inability to use her knowledge of psychology to accurately judge people. Ms.Tey can do the same. I am utterly confused and dissatisfied by this novel. It just makes no sense to me.
Death on the High Beam August 25, 2008
The murder does not occur until near the end of the story. Miss Lucy Pym arrives at Leys to deliver a lecture in psychology and stays for two weeks as one thing after another drags her deeper and deeper into the lives of both the students and faculty.
The adroit style of Josephine Tey takes the reader into those same lives through the eyes of Lucy.
The ending will shock you, when chance reveals the killer after all debts have been paid.
This is a cozy in the grand manner of the Golden Age, a fine book to curl up with and not worry about being frighten, just intrigued.
Writing as a Small BusinessSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil War
Death in the gym June 14, 2008
Any novel by Josephine Tey is worth a second look. A much more subtle writer than, say, Agatha Christie, she recaptures in a lucid and understated style an uncomplicated vision of English life in the first half of the twentieth century. But I must admit that MISS PYM DISPOSES may be one of her less absorbing books for modern readers, because of the hermetic nature of its setting. As with many of the classic Christies, this one is set in a closed community, in this case a residential physical education college for women. But it is not easy to see much variety in this group of mainly upper-middle-class girls, who address one another by their last names, and talk in a jokey slang. Miss Pym, who has achieved a certain fame as the author of a book of pop psychology, is the only outsider.
Nor is there any obvious crime for the longest time. Most of the novel is spent building up the character relationships, as Miss Pym herself becomes fonder of the young students, and gradually extends her stay at the school. [There do seem to be understated lesbian overtones throughout, though this may well be a modern reading.] When one of the students is found dead in the gym, the school administrators think accident, but Miss Pym has other ideas. Now the closed setting becomes essential to the ending of the story, whose outcome Miss Pym, not the police, must decide. It is an unusual ending, breaking with several mystery-story conventions, and goes far to balance the artificiality of the setting.
[The reader may wish to see my much longer review of a collection of Tey novels published as THREE BY TEY, from which the above remarks are taken.]
Great author... but the least of her works October 21, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Unless you're really into whatever nostalia a girls' school might render for you personally, you should probably pass on this one and pick up "The Man in the Queue," "The Singing Sands," "A Shilling for Candles," "The Daughter of Time, " or even "Brat Farrar". This one is a really slow starter and Miss Pym is just not my idea of a "detective" (of sorts).
I'm a huge fan of Josephine Tey, but unless you're reading all her works as a project, just pass this one by and you'll not be disappointed.
Physician heal thyself May 11, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is an enjoyable book, but it's not "Daughter of Time." It takes almost 2/3 of the entertainingly descriptive book to get to the mystery. One can guess the mystery, though clues are rare, but the author presents a double-whammy ending that blows you away. Unfortunately, it's a bit disturbing. The title is key to understanding Miss Pym, so-called expert on psychology. However, I think there's another explanation for her "action." After all, she could have acted again. So, to understand the book (whether this is what Tey meant or not), consider that individuals have styles of activity including: compromise, negotiation, directive, collaborative, & avoidance in varying measure. Usually one predominates. Seems to me that the last one predominates here. From a moral point of view (let alone legal), it also seems to me that the book demonstrates the risk of playing God. I don't think I like Miss Pym after all.
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