Nicola Jane Upson (born 1970) is a British novelist, known for a series of crime novels featuring a fictional version of Josephine Tey as the heroine and detective. [1]
Upson was born in Suffolk, England in 1970, has a bachelor's degree in English from Downing College, Cambridge, [2] and lives in Cambridge. [1]
Upson presents Tey as lesbian in her novels, and has said "It wasn't explicit, but there's no doubt in my mind ... I've got enough letters and interviews enough conversations with people who knew her well that make me certain that Josephine Tey was gay"; "writing their relationship and the things that have they have to consider and the way that gay women's voices to a large extent were silenced in the 1930s makes me realize how many things in my own life I take for granted". [3]
Upson has said that the theme of separation in Dear Little Corpses (2022), which involves the disappearance of evacuees in 1939, came partly from her parents' deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom: "I lost them both, not from Covid but during the Covid period; my dad died and then 10 days later, my mum died too. So that was tough. And although they didn't die of Covid the enforced separation affected them so much, but also, you feel very cheated at the time you couldn't be together". [3]
Upson's partner is the folk singer, novelist and radio presenter Mandy Morton. [4] [5]
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Elizabeth MacKintosh, known by the pen name Josephine Tey, was a Scottish author. Her novel The Daughter of Time, a detective work investigating the death of the Princes in the Tower, was chosen by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990 as the greatest crime novel of all time. Her first play Richard of Bordeaux, written under another pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, starred John Gielgud in its successful West End run.
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The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel by Josephine Tey, concerning a modern police officer's investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England. It was the last book Tey published in her lifetime, shortly before her death. In 1990 it was voted number one in The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time list compiled by the British Crime Writers' Association. In 1995 it was voted number four in The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time list compiled by the Mystery Writers of America.
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An Expert in Murder is a historical crime novel by Nicola Upson, published on March 6, 2008.
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