Rating: 
Summary: ISO Brat Farrar
Review: I first met Brat Farrar in the 1980's on the PBS Mystery! television show. I was completely hooked by Josephine Tey's superbly suspensful story set in the beautiful English countryside complete with horses and touchingly real characters, but most of all by the young, handsome British actor, Mark Greenstreet who amazingly played a dual role to perfection. Alas, I never saw it again, and no video exists, so I bought the book, read it several times, then went on to read Josephine Tey's other stories. But Brat Farrar remains my favorite. The book is everything the dramatization was and more--except for Greenstreet. I strongly urge you to read this book, but if Brat Farrar ever comes on PBS again, DON'T MISS IT!!
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Summary: There's not enough books by Tey.
Review: I love all of the books written by Josephine Tey, and I treasure & reread them all the time. I am just about to purchase my third paperback copy of Brat Farrar - I wore the others out. My only wish is that she had written more of these wonderful stories.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: I picked this book at the bookstore to while time away, and I'm very glad I didn't buy it. the outline of the plot was appealing but in the end it was mediocre. I didn't like the main character all that much, and mostly he stayed in the shadow, as unknown to us as he was to the family. It's also hard to believe that he wasn't revealed as the impostor. the odds of pulling that off are very low. The story went on at a slugglish pace, and the mystery took a backseat most of the time. Most of the time it was Brat going around the estate and meeting people. The suspense was nonexistent. I think Agatha Christie is much more interesting. Also, the mystery in this book was weak and quite predictable.
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Summary: A Mystery with Heart, Atmosphere and Intelligence
Review: I was recommended this book by a favorite teacher in high school, and it has remained my favorite mystery novel and one of my all-time favorite books in the decades since. Unfortunately, it's so good that it has little competition, even among Josephine Tey's all-too-few other books. For one thing, Brat is that rare hero that one both loves and identifies with; you can feel what he's feeling, and you can feel what the other characters feel toward him, with an unusual poignancy. There is also the charm of his adopted family (with one exception) and estate, which needs him as much as he needs it. If a few of the characters and situations are a bit too convenient - the attractive "sister," the villain's lack of conscience, not to mention the revelation of the "why" of Brat's family resemblance! - the compensations are in the richness of the setting and characters, and in the book's wonderful heart.
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Summary: Kazam! A winner!
Review: Josephine Tey excels at the twisted plot, the kind of story in which the unreal seems so real that not only are readers puzzled by the meaning of Truth, but even the characters in the story seem a little confused. This was made into an excellent movie, but the book weaves an even tighter and spookier plot. Brat Farrar agrees to assume the ID of a dead boy and step in as master of a British estate. Then he begins to believe his own tale as things that should be foreign to him somehow feel oddly familiar. Fully developed side-characters and tight, tense plot make for a wide-eyed, suspensful read set against the irresistible backdrop of post-war English country life with all the usual quirky and eccentric inhabitants of the genre.
Excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent dialogue
Review: Large parts of the story and most of the characterisation are driven by dialogue, and what beautifull, vivid and often funny dialogue it is! That these people come so much to life and become so lovable is entirely due to what they say and their many personal ways of saying it. One should only read the breakfast-conversation that opens the book and puts the reader right into the house and into the story.Great stuff that many mystery- writers can only hope to rival.
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Summary: Brat Farrar a classic exploration of assumed identity
Review: Most die-hard mystery fans are familiar with Ms. Tey's _A Daughter of Time_, in which a hospitalized Scotland Yard detective dispels the "prickles of boredom" by debunking the idea that Richard III killed the Princes in the Tower. Perhaps less well known is this book, _Brat Farrar_, about how a fundamentally decent man is persuaded to exploit his resemblance to a believed-dead heir by assuming that young man's identity. The narration of how he prepares for and pulls off this impersonation is thrilling in and of itself, but the great tension in the book comes when Brat discovers that Patrick Ashby, whose life and inheritance Brat has assumed, did not run away or kill himself, but was in fact murdered by someone very close to him. What Brat does about the moral dilemma--and the threat to his own life--posed by the murderer makes for a suspenseful and satisfying conclusion
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Summary: One of my favorite books EVER
Review: One of greatest tragedies in the world of mysteries is that Josephine Tey wrote so few. I've loved this book ever since I was a girl and found it on the shelf of my parent's library. The book is populated by a number of likeable, believable characters (even the unlikeable characters are believable). The reader is compelled to keep reading by the interesting plot that keeps reveals new aspects of the story without seeming at all contrived.
Rating:
Summary: Imposing Imposter
Review: Orphan Brat Farrar was named partly through a telephone book and partly by mistake. Destiny takes him half way round the world and back again to accept a proposition to take the place and inheritance of a missing boy. The story as so many of the time and genre are, is set in the midst of a middle class English country family. The plot which I will not reveal is clever although not really a shock to the attentive reader, the writing is good and the characters are well developed. The suprise for me was not the twist in the tale, but that the person you really get to like in the book is Brat who is the imposter and criminal. Actually most of the characters are both likeable and comfortable which makes the readers journey through this book extremely pleasant if not gripping. This was my introduction to Josephine Tey, it will certainly not be the last time I read her work.
Rating:
Summary: Imposing Imposter
Review: Orphan Brat Farrar was named partly through a telephone book and partly by mistake. Destiny takes him half way round the world and back again to accept a proposition to take the place and inheritance of a missing boy. The story as so many of the time and genre are, is set in the midst of a middle class English country family. The plot which I will not reveal is clever although not really a shock to the attentive reader, the writing is good and the characters are well developed. The suprise for me was not the twist in the tale, but that the person you really get to like in the book is Brat who is the imposter and criminal. Actually most of the characters are both likeable and comfortable which makes the readers journey through this book extremely pleasant if not gripping. This was my introduction to Josephine Tey, it will certainly not be the last time I read her work.
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