Mama Bear: In The Man in the Queue, the murderer finds out that her daughter's jealous ex-boyfriend is planning an If I Can't Have You… murder, and kills him before he gets the chance.

The Killer Was Left-Handed: In The Man in the Queue, Inspector Grant spends a great deal of time deducing the handedness with which the killing blow was dealt, and then looking for someone who uses that hand, only to find out at the end that the killer is ambidextrous.

Innocent Blue Eyes: Inverted in The Franchise Affair, in which Betty's eyes are a particular shade of blue that 'proves' she's oversexed.

I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: In The Singing Sands, the MacGuffin is an unfinished sonnet, which the protagonist, who used to write sonnets in school, takes with him out of idle interest, then considers finishing as a gesture to the dead person as he studies it, he realizes it is a code.Gut Feeling: Inspector Grant is a good instinctive judge of character.Driven to Suicide: In The Singing Sands, the egocentric killer opts for a dramatic suicide and a long-winded suicide note to a Scotland Yard investigator, assuming that the murder has been a perfect murder that could not have been detected or proved and wanting to go out in a blaze of glory.A Shilling for Candles and Brat Farrar are set in the same part of Kent, and share some family names if not individual characters. Character Overlap: The lawyer Kevin Macdermott appears in both The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrar The Franchise Affair also has Inspector Grant in a supporting role.Blitz Evacuees: Betty Kane in The Franchise Affair.Beauty Equals Goodness: An overarching trope found in all her works, and based on her own strong belief in the truth of physiognomy.

Other works by Josephine Tey provide examples of: Works by Josephine Tey with their own trope pages include: Probably her most widely known novel is The Daughter of Time, in which Inspector Grant, stuck in hospital with a broken leg, fends off boredom by re-investigating the historical case of the Princes in the Tower, concluding that Richard III wasn't the one who done it. A Shilling For Candles was adapted (very loosely) as the Alfred Hitchcock film Young and Innocent. Several of her novels have been adapted for film or television. Five feature Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, the rest a variety of Amateur Sleuths. Josephine Tey (real name Elizabeth MacKintosh, 25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952) was a Scottish writer of mystery novels.

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey