A review of Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey – 231208

Originally published in 1949, Brat Farrar, which also goes by the alternative title of Come and Kill Me, is described as a mystery novel and sees Tey at her impressive best. It is a profoundly troubling book as it places the reader in a moral dilemma as to how much sympathy to expend on the eponymous character.

Between them Brat and a ne’er-do-well, Alec Loding, whom he meets on the London streets, hatch a plan to wrest control of the Ashby inheritance. Playing upon Brat’s uncanny resemblance to the Ashby clan, a point which becomes of increasing importance as the story unfolds, and the disappearance of the elder twin, Patrick, heir to the estate, at the age of thirteen, presumed to have committed suicide by drowning, Alec, who knows the Ashby family well, schools Brat to assume the identity of the missing twin. The plan is that they split the inheritance on a 50/50 basis.

Brat proves to be an outstanding student, growing into the role of Patrick with consummate ease, assimilating every little detail of the elder twin’s life and life at the family home, Latchetts, including those little incidents that only someone who had really been there could possibly know. Tey takes her time over this section, recognising that it is crucial to the success of the story.

Brat successfully convinces the family lawyer convinces that he is really Patrick, concocting a story which has him stowing away on a boat across the channel, working his way through France and then making it to America where he worked with horses, his passion. Part of the attraction to him of settling in Latchetts is that it is a horse stable. Brat also convinces the mater familias, his “aunt” that he is Patrick and plans are laid for his return to the bosom of the family.

His return is not universally welcomed, not least by Simon, Patrick’s younger twin, who is robbed of the inheritance that he believed was his. Relations are difficult and Tey is excellent in portraying the family’s reactions and Brat’s growing unease that his deception will be revealed. Simon cannot believe that the newcomer is Patrick and this overt hostility has a twofold effect. It makes Brat grow closer to Patrick and makes him determined to discover what really happened on that fateful night.       

The key to the mystery is an old shepherd who helps to shed doubt on Simon’s alibi that he was elsewhere at the time of Patrick’s disappearance. As Brat attempts to reconstruct what happened, he is surprised by Simon and there is fight with tragic consequences. The truth about Brat’s deception emerges, as does the reason why he so closely resembles the Ashbys. Tey finds her way to give the story a satisfying resolution.

Clearly, Brat is a cuckoo in the nest, but he is portrayed as a rogue with a conscience. As we learn more about him our disgust at his audacity subtly changes to sympathy for his plight. The strength of the book lies in Tey’s eye for detail, her layering of information that enables us to get a growing understanding of the complexities of Brat’s character and her careful portrayal of the domestic rhythms of life at Latchetts which his arrival upsets.

It is an impressive book and reemphasises what a wonderful and woefully neglected writer Josephine Tey is.