5 things I've learned from Josephine Tey (at least the fictional version of her as portrayed in the novels of Nicola Upson)

I’ve been reading, well, listening to, Nicola Upson’s wonderful Josephine Tey novels and I am addicted to them. Josephine Tey was the pen name of Elizabeth Mackintosh, a celebrated mystery writer and novelist during the 1930s and 40s, and Nicola Upson has turned her into the main character of her own series of detective novels. I have described that really badly, all you need to know is that these books are really awesome and Josephine Tey was a real person. 

see? real person!

Here are a few things Josephine Tey* has made me realise:

1. I need to make friends with a detective inspector, preferably one who clearly harbours romantic feelings for me and takes me on holiday with him but never makes me feel guilty or uncomfortable. Archie Penrose is Josephine Tey’s detective best friend and he is the BEST, better even than Jack in Miss Fisher! Archie is a highly intelligent and competent police officer blah blah but he is also an emotionally sensitive and all round awesome human being. He drops everything so see Josephine every time she rings him up and he is incredibly liberal and enlightened for a 1930s man, let alone a 1930s detective inspector. His friends are all actors and writers and nearly all gay women.
2. I need more names. Josephine Tey is actually one of two pen names used by the real-life Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine Tey was the name she used for her detective novels and she wrote her plays under the name Gordon Daviet. I think I need some more names pretty urgently… I also need to do something that requires me to have so many names. It might be time for me to start writing Mills and Boon under a ridiculous name like Saskia Montgomery.
3. I need to be a member of a London club. Josephine lives in Inverness most of the time but she regularly comes to London to visit her friends or oversee a play and always stays in her London club. I thought that London clubs were only for men in costume dramas! I didn’t know there had ever been clubs like that that women joined. How wonderful would it be to have a club like that where you could stay whenever you fancied, get a nice meal and have a chat with other awesome women? It would be the perfect mix of staying with friends AND disappearing off alone.
4. I need one of my godmothers to leave me a cottage so I can do it up and have a gorgeous rural escape. This is extremely unlikely to happen as my godmothers both have about million people to leave their houses to before me, 
5. I need to go on more holidays. Josephine is always off to Cornwall or Port Merion or simply staying in London for a few weeks at a time. I haven't been away since I went to Edinburgh last December.

**or at least Nicola Upson's version of her