I quite like Josephine Tey, although this book had its longeurs. But it is well written and readable.
The plot involves an elderly mother and her daughter living post war in rural suburban England (eg a small country town not far from a big city). They find themselves accused of kidnapping and abusing a 15/16 year old girl who was on holiday in the locality.
A local and quite dull solicitor springs to their defence, partly because he's attracted to the daughter and after a very lengthy (complete with longeurs) middle section it transpires, as he thought, that she was a young scallywag who had spent the period of the alleged kidnap in Amsterdam with a man she had picked up in the big city.
The dull solicitor is the central figure and his obsession with proving the womens’ innocence is a bit tedious. Even if he is right.
Grant, as previous books, is the detective but has a minor role. The daughter rejects the solicitors marriage proposal at the end of the book, probably correctly.
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