Val McDermid described Josephine Tey as the ‘most interesting of the great female writers of the Golden Age’, and this unconventional crime mystery – one of the best loved of Tey’s works – is a brilliant example of what makes her so unique. A town full of colourful characters and an impossible disappearance, all threaded through with Tey’s signature psychological probing: all of these delicious ingredients explain why The Franchise Affair has repeatedly been adapted for film and television, and why the Crime Writers Association named it one of the Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.