Brat Farrar, Josephine Tey, Touchstone, $14.00 (original publication date 1950).
The story goes like this: a reprobate fringe actor in London runs across a man who looks like the twin of his boyhood neighbor. A scheme is born. Alex Loding, the reprobate, takes the at loose ends Brat Farrar and coaches him to become the mysteriously vanished Patrick Ashby, long thought to be a suicide. His return home will upset the family in more ways than one - his surviving twin brother, Simon, had been set to inherit, but Patrick had been the older twin and his return would mean a reversal of fortune for Simon. For his younger sisters, Jane and Ruth, who were too young when Patrick disappeared to remember him, it's not so complicated, but there's still the issue of loyalty to their surviving brother. For the elder sister, Eleanor, she is the one who shares Patrick / Brat's passion for horses - the passion that got him to agree to the scheme. His lost "family" home, Latchetts, is a horse farm that supports the estate. And for Aunt Bee, who raised the children after the accidental and tragic deaths of their parents, the return of Patrick seems like a miracle.
When Bee first meets Brat, in the company of the family lawyer, she's unsure he's really Patrick - but just in case gives him a familial kiss on the cheek. This cements their relationship as far as Brat is concerned. When he is approved by the lawyers and "returns" to Latchetts, his place in the family, while initially rocky, soon seems natural, and is held in place by his love of horses, a love shared by the whole family, except for Ruth.
The story is such a strong one because even though as a reader you are aware that Patrick / Brat is an imposter, at the same time you are rooting for him. You can watch the growing affection for him on the part of Bee and the girls with the same mixture of dismay and gratitude that Brat himself feels. And when a darker secret is finally revealed about Patrick's disappearance, the moral conundrums that surround it resonate with emotion and make the end of the book pack an incredible punch. If you haven't read Brat Farrar before, you're in for a treat; Tey's economical prose and ability to create indelible character and place will stay with you long after you've finished the book. If you are a returning reader, enjoy - it's no less delightful the second or third time around. There's a reason this is an author who is routinely assigned to the "golden age" of mystery fiction.
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