Nicola Upson

Nicola Jane Upson (born 1970) is a British novelist, known for a series of crime novels featuring a fictional version of Josephine Tey as the heroine and detective.^[1]

Biography

Upson was born in Suffolk, England in 1970, has a bachelor's degree in English from Downing College, Cambridge,^[2] and lives in Cambridge.^[1]

Work

Upson presents Tey as lesbian in her novels, and has said "It wasn't explicit, but there's no doubt in my mind ... I've got enough letters and interviews enough conversations with people who knew her well that make me certain that Josephine Tey was gay"; "writing their relationship and the things that have they have to consider and the way that gay women's voices to a large extent were silenced in the 1930s makes me realize how many things in my own life I take for granted".^[3]

Upson has said that the theme of separation in Dear Little Corpses (2022), which involves the disappearance of evacuees in 1939, came partly from her parents' deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom: "I lost them both, not from Covid but during the Covid period; my dad died and then 10 days later, my mum died too. So that was tough. And although they didn't die of Covid the enforced separation affected them so much, but also, you feel very cheated at the time you couldn't be together".^[3]

Personal life

Upson's partner is the folk singer, novelist and radio presenter Mandy Morton.^[4][5]

Novels

• An Expert in Murder (2008)
• Angel with Two Faces (2009)
• Two for Sorrow (2010)
• Fear in the Sunlight (2012)
• The Death of Lucy Kyte (2013)
• London Rain (2015)
• Nine Lessons (2017)^[6]
• Stanley and Elsie (2019) – standalone novel
• Sorry for the Dead (2019)
• The Dead of Winter (2020)
• Dear Little Corpses (2022)
• Shot With Crimson (2023)^[7][8]