Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 22, 2011

Elizabeth rated it:

This book is a fantastic opportunity for any serious history ~~geek~~ aficionado to write a long treatise on why Ms. Tey is a sloppy historian, and possibly a rather boring mystery writer. I admit, I had to resist the urge to start this review with a quote from E. H. Carr and I promise you, you don't want to go there. I am lumping myself in with those would-be treatise writers, since I can quote Carr but the book lends itself to it, even if you haven't studied a lot of History. It asks, what is hist More...

57 comments like (30 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2010

Ellen rated it:

It’s hard to read A Daughter of Time and not think of James Stewart, similarly laid up in Rear Window, which was produced only a few years later than Tey’s mystery.

In Hitchcock’s movie, the photographer casts a panoptic gaze at the people he can see through the many apartment windows available from his rear window, and plays detective, with the help of the ridiculously over-dressed Grace Kelly. Alan Grant, in Tey’s novel, similarly wounded in the line of duty, is an actual detective More...

3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Siria rated it:

This book had the potential to really engage me--it deals with Richard III and all the various permutations of the Yorkist, Lancastrian and Tudor factions in late medieval England, and it's not badly written at all. Unfortunately, there were so many little things in it which frustrated me that I was completely soured to the author's argument--that Richard III was innocent of the murder of the Princes in the Tower--by the time I finished reading.

Though there are elements of her argume More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 17, 2008

Amy rated it:

OK, after reading To the Tower Born, I got really hooked on the Richard III thing and about him maybe being a murderer or maybe not. So I read this book Daughter of Time, which went about attempting to prove Richard III's innocence in one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in history. Did he really murder his nephews in the Tower of London because they were a threat to his throne? Or has history painted a false picture of Richard III? This book takes a different angle and offers another vi More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2009

Martine rated it:

The Daughter of Time is an unlikely detective story. It's the story of a police inspector who, whilst laid up in bed because of a leg injury, is presented with a portrait of England's King Richard III (reigned 1483-1485) and comes to the conclusion that a man so genteel-looking couldn't possibly be the ruthless murderer Shakespeare made him out to be, because 'villains don't suffer, and that face is full of the most dreadful pain' (judge for yourself here). So with a little help from the nurses More...

9 comments like (14 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

Leta rated it:

I've loved this book for years and when it came up in conversation recently I decided it was time to re-re-re-read it.

Alan Grant, one of Tey's best character's is laid up in the hospital with a broken leg. To assuage the "prickles of boredom," Grant takes up the very cold case of Richard III - hero or villain? One of the best known of the "literary" defences of Richard, it is also just plain fun to read. Grant and his "research worker" consider the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2007

Elizabeth rated it:

This novel was recommended to me years ago by one of my grad school advisers because it’s about Richard III. I’ve only just gotten around to reading it, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It’s about an extremely bored policeman who’s recovering from an on-the-job injury and is laid up in the hospital with nothing to do. He becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of the two little princes in the tower, who Richard supposedly murdered. In his research into the historical Richard, he becomes convinced More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2009

Kate rated it:

I love any book that can make me interested in and excited about something I don't care about at all. Richard the Third? Huh?

Tey's recurring character Inspector Grant is in the hospital and bored nearly to tears until a portrait of King Richard III catches his eye: he's supposed to be a monster who murdered his nephews, but his portrait depicts a man who Grant would place "on the other side of the bench" as a judge. Grant's intellectual investigations are aided by his nurs More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Karla (Mossy Love Grotto) rated it:

I went into this book only knowing that it "proved" Richard III wasn't the wicked uncle who offed his nephews in the Tower. What I didn't know was that, after a rather snarky and fun intro that sets the scene of a cranky inspector bed-ridden with a broken leg, it would soon become a tedious story with dull pacing, boring dialogue, and a self-righteous tone.

The premise is based solely on Alan Grant's gut instinct that the face of Richard III in a portrait reproduction isn't More...

22 comments like (13 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2008

Sherry (sethurner) rated it:

"Grant lay on his high white cot and stared at the ceiling. Started at it with loathing."

Years ago I went to a talk by the actor Vincent Price, who mentioned that The Daughter of Time was his favorite book, and that he loved misunderstood characters. Certainly Shakespeare made Richard III into a character who we love to loathe. Hunchback, sneaky, rotten to the core, Shakespeare's Richard is the seducer of widows, the betrayer of loyal friends and the killer of the young princes in t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2008

Tippi rated it:

The premise: A cop is stuck in the hospital with a broken leg. To pass the time, he and "woolly lamb" (whatever that means) Research Worker Carradine attempt to decode a historical mystery - how and why did Richard III kill the Princes in the Tower?

The only reason the cop is interested in Richard III is because in his opinion, the "monster" looks more like a judge than a murderer. Honestly, Tey devotes way too much time to describing the ability of the cop to " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 11, 2008

Bree rated it:

I knew within the first few pages I would like this book - if nothing else for the language and phraseology.

The general plot moves along like a general mystery worked backwards - knowing the outcome from the start and working through the facts to find the motive. What makes it interesting and compelling are the subject matter and the storytelling techniques.
There are a lot of epistolary qualities to the book, coupled with traditional mystery elements and an exquisite command More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 06, 2008

Ebookwormy rated it:

Voted #4 of 100 best mysteries of all time by Mystery Writers of America (www.mysterywriters.org) and see also World Magazine January 12/19, 2008, pg. 27).

I have read books that are fiction, and claim to be true. But this is the first time I read a true story that was presented as fiction. As the author is a fiction writer, I'm guessing she wrote it this way for two reasons: 1) to avoid the tedious academic scrutiny and documentation and, 2) To give the ideas presented wider exposur More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 29, 2008

Meagan rated it:

From a literary standpoint? Eh. From an academic standpoint, which was why I read the book in the first place? Double-eh.

The prose is smooth and easy enough to follow, and the insertion of historical facts is presented in a fairly interesting way. Much preferable over a textbook, definitely. But the characterization? Non-existent. Style? Themes? Nothing. It's obvious that Tey just isn't a fiction author. But that's okay, I was expecting that.

However, from an academic view More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2007

Claire rated it:

This book is fantastic. It's a quick read with a witty premise . . . a British detective (the hero of Josephine Tey's mystery series) is cooped up in the hospital after an accident, bored out of his mind, and his friends try to distract him with various projects. He ends up trying to solve the historical mystery of whether Richard III really killed his young nephews, and recruits people to run back and forth to various libraries and art museums and dingy back-alley bookshops to bring him resea More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2010

Julie rated it:

#43 - 2010.

A classic mystery except that it is conducted by a Scotlant Yard inspector who is in the hospital for several weeks bored out of his mind (this is before television). He is known for his ability to "read faces" and is intrigued by a portrait of Richard III. Could such a sensitive face actually belong to a king who murdered his nephews to secure his crown? With the help of an American scholar, he investigates using historical sources, and then must investigate the More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2008

Lexi rated it:

Wow! For something I picked up at a B&N clearance sale, I did not expect to be blown away by a $3.99 old paperback. What does it say about me that I loved a book in which 100% of the story takes place in a man's hospital room. It also reminded me of "Lies my teacher told me" but in a much more entertaining way. I ADORE the idea of scraping away the lies of history and finding the real essence of our heroes, heroines, and everyday joes. But mostly, this is a great mystery that was More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 16, 2010

Trix rated it:

I first read this book so long ago that I'm not sure when it was. It is a sort of mystery, but really it's a novel about a detective who uses his skills on and old, unchallenged bit of history. It had rather spectacular repercussions because it opened up the whole question of Richard III's "murder" of his nephews. More importantly, it made obvious that history is written by the winners, and that there is always quite another story that is usually forgotten. Its language and setting are More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 02, 2007

Rory rated it:

A friend loaned this to me after we talked about books that had irrevocably changed our view of a certain history when we'd read them as a young adult. I told her that I'd absorbed Mccullough's biography of Truman so completely that I'll never believe anything against him (Truman, that is). This book made Sarah always feel sorry for Richard III. So we traded books, and I got a kick out of hers.

It was written in the early 50s, dry, dated, and stilted. The plot's set up as a police de More...

2 comments like

Sep 29, 2007

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it:

Who decides what is history? What is the truth about Richard III? Did he really murder the princes in the tower? And is it possible to find out while immobilized in a hospital bed? Inspector Richard Jury becomes intrigued by the character he sees in a portrait of Richard III, and begins to question the established wisdom about the notorious villain.
Not your usual mystery - real research done for this book has led to a movement to correct the historical record on Richard III. A thoughtful More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2010

Kirsty added it

I read all the rest of Josephine Tey's books as a teenager and really enjoyed them. I could never persuade myself to read this one though. History wasn't my thing (and still isn't) and this book sounded as dull as dishwater to me.

Another lifetime later I'm pleased to find that this is a very entertainingly different mystery. It reminded me a little of the Lury.Gibson book Dangerous Data that I read recently though Tey writes a much better story. Nothing happens in the book, we just have Insp

More...

0 comments like

Mar 27, 2009

Bruce rated it:

Was the last Plantagenet king of England the complete villain that was portrayed on stage by William Shakespeare a century later? Scottish playwright and novelist Elizabeth Mackintosh presents the case for the defense in this mystery novel published in 1951 under her pen name Josephine Tey. Scholarly historians had made the case before this, but Daughter of Time turned historical debate into a work of popular entertainment that has gathered critical praise as a work of literature long after it f More...

0 comments like

Dec 12, 2008

MAP rated it:

A detective story that takes place entirely in one setting: the hospital bed of Detective Alan Grant. Bored to tears and given postcards of famous people involved in mysteries, Grant decides that Richard III's face doesn't match his reputation, ropes in a guy that works at the British Museum to do some research, and they both unravel whether history's most evil uncle truly did the thing's he's accused of.

An amazingly clever book, witty, full of humor, and daringly written, because the More...

1 comment like

Feb 02, 2012

Rett rated it:

After four centuries, mystery solved
Tonypandy is a town in South Wales where in 1910 an all-out labor riot took place. The newspapers and even local talk twisted and exaggerated the real story and the falsified account became the historical record.

Alan Grant, the main character in Josephine Tey's "The "Daughter of Time," uses the word Tonypandy to describe faulty collective memory and in particular the popular history that tells us Richard III, whose name has com More...

0 comments like

Jan 01, 2012

Rick rated it:

I found this completely by (happy) accident on a used-books-for-sale shelf in a coffee house in Durham NH a few months ago, and just got around to reading it.

So far, so good. This is not quite a standard mystery; the events in question happened over 500 years ago, and the bare facts are well established. The mystery, then, is in possibility that these facts may not be as reliable as we suppose. As I'm still in the middle of the book I cannot say how things turn out yet.

Many k More...

0 comments like

Dec 04, 2011

Grace rated it:

When I started reading this book, I had no idea of what to expect. I was in for a pleasant surprise. This book is a work of historical fiction as well as a great detective story. It is not only filled with history but with research methods of which I have a great interest.

After I had finished the book, for the life of me I couldn't figure out how the book got its title, so I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, "The Daughter of Time" of the title is from a quote More...

0 comments like

Aug 06, 2011

Danny rated it:

I'd like to say that I picked this book up because I was researching great mystery novels and this was touted as not-to-be-missed. The cover does, after all, quote the New York Times saying it is "one of the best mysteries of all time."

But to give credit where credit is due, I must admit I got the suggestion from Patton Oswalt's book of humorous essays, "Zombie Spaceship Wasteland," where he mentioned it as a great mystery novel. So I decided to check it out. (Whi More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2011

Sheila rated it:

“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority,” said Sir Francis Bacon. In Josephine Tey’s 1950s novel, The Daughter of Time, truth is that which Scotland Yard inspector, Alan Grant, has often searched after and found in the faces of criminals. Now he’s laid up in hospital with an injury, and thoroughly bored. Friends try to cheer him with images of famous criminals, but it’s the face of King Richard III that intrigues him, a man who looks more like he belongs on the bench than in the dock. D More...

0 comments like

May 24, 2011

Ari rated it:

The Daughter of Time is a fascinating historical fiction mystery that nevertheless fails to engage with readers. A reader must have a firm grasp of English royal history, specifically considering the War of Roses. The War of Roses is complicated on its own; it becomes even more complex when it surrounds a crime. The brief bit of time American high school students spend on the War of Roses is in their freshman year and many of us found it hard to keep the facts straight back then, so very few of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2010

Steve rated it:

Not Tonypandy, site of early 20th century riots by coal miners. But when Tey wrote this fine mystery (1951), the conventional wisdom about Tonypandy was all wrong. The challenge of accepted but inaccurately recorded historical events becomes a major theme for Scotland Yard’s hospitalized Inspector Alan Grant, and Tonypandy comes to be the word Grant uses with his researcher to reflect such historical error. Grant is a skilled reader of faces, and when presented a portrait of disgraced former More...

0 comments like

reviews