The Killer in the Crowd. A Shilling for Candles. The Case of the Abduction of Betty Cain

Josephine Tey (real name Elizabeth MacKintosh; 1896–1952) was a famous writer, the daughter of a Scotsman and an Englishwoman, a recognized master of the British detective genre. In 1929, she debuted with the book "The Man in the Queue," in which Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard first appeared (later the hero of five more of her novels). The inspector trusts his own intuition, but not blindly: he carefully weighs all the evidence, listens attentively to witness testimonies; and even if everything seems to be against the suspect, Alan Grant will not leave any clue unverified. In short, anyone finding themselves in a complicated situation would dream of such a conscientious police inspector! This collection includes three novels from the cycle: "The Killer in the Crowd, or The Man in the Queue" (1929), "A Shilling for Candles" (1936), and "The Case of the Abduction of Betty Cain" (1948). Based on the second one, Alfred Hitchcock made the film "Young and Innocent" in 1937, and film adaptations of the novel "The Case of the Abduction of Betty Cain" were created in 1951 and 1962 (under the title "The Franchise Affair") and a television series in 1988.