The Gifts

Fear in the Sunlight by Nicola Upson Mystery novelist Josephine Tey is spending her 40th birthday in the resort town of Portmeirion with Alfred Hitchcock and crew, taking a holiday while they film a movie adaptation of one of her books. Then someone is murrrrderrred. Twenty years later, someone else is murdered on the set of another Hitchcock film. Coincidence?! Hitchcock and Tey involved in a murder mystery is an awesome set-up for a book. Unfortunately, in my opinion Upson squanders it. Judging by this novel, if Upson has ever seen a Hitchcock picture or read a Tey mystery—which I doubt—she gained absolutely no lessons on how to write OR tell a story while doing…