A highly entertaining whodunit, "Man in the Queue" starts with a murder in the middle of a crowd, not your average mystery novel set up, and follows along a path that brings a couple of nice surprises to readers of this genre, in particular when it comes to character development and atmosphere. It is a pity, then, that the ending is a little bit of out of the blue, even if it fits perfectly with what has come before.
The best: characters, atmosphere; Tey takes her time to develop both of them and does it so in a great way, with little touches that in a sentence or two bring characters to life
The worst: Deus Ex Machina resolution; it can be quite annoying/surprising/rub the wrong way all the comments about 'typical English', 'typical Italian', and other comments about race and cultures that appear in the story
Further reading: here is where Agatha Christie or Kyôtarô Nishimura come to mind
7/10
(English)
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