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The Singing Sands

AuthorJosephine Tey

NarratorKaren Cass

SeriesInspector Alan Grant, Book 6

Duration7h 13m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Crime, Thriller and Mysteries

PublisherSNR Audio

VersionUnabridged

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Diagnosed with ‘overwork’ and in the grip of debilitating claustrophobia, Inspector Alan Grant takes leave from Scotland Yard and heads for the peaceful home of his cousin Laura, who lives with her family in the Scottish Highlands. As the London mail draws into Inverness, he sees the surly sleeping-car attendant trying to rouse an unresponsive young man. He is compelled, firstly, to point out that the passenger is dead, and secondly to pick up the newspaper that has slipped onto the compartment floor. On it the deceased, who appears to have drunk himself into oblivion, has scrawled an elusive poem about a paradise guarded by ‘singing sand’. Grant is soon fascinated by the hopes and dreams of the dead man with ‘tumbled black hair and...reckless eyebrows’. And though he has planned to do nothing in Scotland but fish, he cannot help but act on the growing suspicion that a far more sinister story is waiting to be uncovered.

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Vanessa 31 Mar 2026

Brilliant Golden Age detective novel from a very underrated writer

Josephine Tey is sadly very underrated. Her Golden Age detective novels are up with with the other queens of the genre. This, the 6th Inspector Grant book, is a prime example of that. The books in the series can all be read as standalones.

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