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The Daughter of Time (Inspector Alan Grant #5)

by Josephine Tey, Robert Barnard (Introduction)

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 8,451 ratings · 1,115 reviews

In one of Tey's bestselling mystery novels ever, Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is intrigued by a portrait of Richard III. Could such a sensitive face actually belong to one of history's most heinous villains—a king who killed his brother's children to secure his crown? Grant determines to find out once and for all what kind of man Richard was and who in fact killed th...more

Paperback, 206 pages

Published November 29th 1995 by Touchstone (first published 1951)

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Feb 22, 2011 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Ruthless

Shelves: 2011, books-about-books, history, in-by-of-england, mystery, reviewed, scottish

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 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 history, and anyone who reads histories, seriously or not, can't help but want to answer that question.

Anyone who has ever had to suffer through the badly argued work of an "Historian" whose research is questionable and whose theory is based on wishful thinking, has wanted to lambaste the whole study of History and every writer of it. It's easy to do. There's lots of questionable stuff out there (please don't get me started on what goes into American textbooks). It's particularly easy if you hated history in school because what you learned seemed so trivial, lots of names and dates, and only certain, seemingly random events, stay with you. To this day I can tell you more about Carry Nation than most of the US Presidents because my history teacher was particularly interesting that day, and, admittedly, six feet tall hatch-wielding frontier women are always more interesting than guys responsible for enforcing policy.

If you are a mystery writer, clever in many ways, and have become frustrated from the histories you read, you might write something like The Daughter of Time. It's easy. You don't have to footnote. It's fiction, so there's no reason to cite sources. You can influence the readers' acceptance of your argument through character development. The reader trusts the characters, so why wouldn't she trust the argument they present? The whole book becomes a fairly fascinating study of historiography, which is great because the story itself is kind of dull (kind of like this review, which is putting me to sleep).

What was most interesting (and distressing) about this book was Tey's classism. Her critique of the British education, the failure of people to think logically, the despair she showed at what the average English person would accept as Truth because she (or he) learned it in school was worth reading. Unfortunately, her sheep-like targets were all of lower class to her "heroes" and that was a bit disturbing. It was these men who were willing to think through the mystery and who demanded reliable sources, who were unwilling to simply believe what they were told without proof, and who were bright enough to draw their own conclusions, they were educated professionals, and well off. It was kind of like she was calling for a "new man" to come in and shake up society a bit, get it thinking again. It's just a mystery story but it felt a lot like a politically motivated societal critique, one that I felt might have been a bit biased if not too harsh. (less)

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Feb 19, 2010 Ellen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Ellen by: Lynda

Shelves: novel, mysteries

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/inspector,...more

20 likes · like · see review

Jun 04, 2007 Siria rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century, british-fiction, historical-fiction, crime-fiction

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 arguments with whi...more

13 likes · like · see review

Feb 07, 2013 Deanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crimethriller, history, top-100-crime-novels

Read this but in light of recent events in Leicester I feel like reading this again.
For those who don't know recently archaeologists have been digging up a car park in Leicester in the hopes of finding Richard III. Heard today that they've found a skeleton in a medieval grave, with a curvature of the spine, a head injury and an arrow head in between two of the vertebrae. The skeleton was also found where records said he was buried in the choir of the church.
Now the debate is on as to where the...more

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Sep 17, 2008 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 villa...more

16 likes · like · see review

Oct 11, 2009 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british, crime, modern-fiction, history

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 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 and the friends and colleagues who come and visit him in the hospital, he starts digging in fifteenth-century history, only to come up with a few interesting theories of his own, all of which seem to point to history's having given Richard a rotten deal. For in reality, Tey has her bed-ridden hero discover, Richard III had no motive to have half of his family (including his two under-age nephews) murdered, as sixteenth-century historians alleged. He may not have been a hunchback, either. Rather he was the victim of revisionist history as written by the Tudor kings who succeeded him and who had their own reasons for vilifying him. History, lest we forget, is written by the victors, and boy, can they do damage to a guy's reputation if they have a talented playwright on their side. Just ask Macbeth of Scotland, who was by all accounts a fairly good and popular king.

I'm not sure how historically accurate the details of Tey's argument are, nor whether her evidence would stand up in a modern court of justice, but the case for Richard is presented in a convincing manner and makes a gripping read, mainly because the protagonist, Inspector Alan Grant, is absolutely convinced of Richard's innocence and hell-bent on finding evidence to support his subjective impression of the man, taking a violent dislike to Richard's most famous biographer, Sir Thomas More, in the process. I love books in which the characters get passionate and even a little obsessive about things, and Tey's Inspector Grant is nothing if not obsessive. His ferocious zeal for his quest (often expressed in violent outbursts to startled nurses) is quite infectious, to the point where you find yourself wishing for a big pile of history books and access to the British Museum to verify Grabt's discoveries for yourself. At least that's what the book did for me. After finishing The Daughter of Time, I spent several hours on line Googling the authors and historians Tey mentions in her book, some historical, others seemingly fictitious. In the course of my research, I came across several Ricardian societies, all working towards a rehabilitation of the last Plantagenet king. Many of their members seem to have joined after reading The Daughter of Time. In short, Tey's book has been influential, and for good reason -- it's a fascinating journey through English history, and a grand tale of high-minded obsession to boot. It had me add several history books to my to-read list. I love books which make me enthusiastic for previously unexplored subjects, so as far as that's concerned, Tey did a great job.

Is that to say The Daughter of Time is a faultless book? By no means. While I was impressed with the way in which Tey shared her research and sustained her reader's interest in her detective's quest for the truth, I often found the dialogue in The Daughter of Time lacklustre. Not only do Tey's researchers regularly have unlikely conversations about clues which I suspect would be very hard to dig up five hundred years after the fact (even if one had access to the venerable records held by the British Museum), but to make matters worse they all sound identical, all speaking in the same benignly polite but slightly ironic voice. As portrayed by Tey, middle-aged British police inspector Alan Grant and his much younger American assistant Brent Carradine sound much the same, and there is little to distinguish between the female characters, either. I think the book could have done with slightly more individualised and characteristic dialogue, but really, that's a minor complaint. For the most part, The Daughter of Time succeeds admirably in what it does, which is making and keeping its readers interested in a five hundred-year-old mystery, while making a few interesting observations about the way history is written along the way. I liked the examples of what Inspector Grant refers to as 'Tonypandy' -- legendary historical events which live on in popular consciousness despite the fact that they have been proven to be untrue. If Tey's research is anything to go by, the legend of Richard III falls squarely into the Tonypandy category. Needless to say, that doesn't make Shakespeare's play of the same name any less interesting, but it does add an interesting dimension to the story, doesn't it?

For those who wish to read more about the evidence supporting Richard's innocence, here's Horace Walpole's excellent and well-researched defence of the last Plantagenet king, first published in 1786, which seems to have been one of the bases for The Daughter of Time (the other being Clements Markham's later Richard III: His Life and Character Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research).
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Mar 06, 2013 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was not at all what I had expected. After having this book pop up as a recommendation in several Plantagenet arenas, I decided that I had to have it. It is not, however, really a novel about Richard III in the traditional sense.

I was disappointed at the outset of this novel when the first several chapters were about Grant, a detective who is laid up in the hospital with a broken leg. (Did they truly keep patients in the hospital for weeks with a broken leg at the time this was written...more This book was not at all what I had expected. After having this book pop up as a recommendation in several Plantagenet arenas, I decided that I had to have it. It is not, however, really a novel about Richard III in the traditional sense.

I was disappointed at the outset of this novel when the first several chapters were about Grant, a detective who is laid up in the hospital with a broken leg. (Did they truly keep patients in the hospital for weeks with a broken leg at the time this was written?) I was not much interested in the characters of Grant, Marta, or anyone else who was introduced at this time and wondered why the book had come with such high recommendations.

Soon I realized that Grant was to investigate, as fully as he could from his hospital bed, the mystery of Richard as the murderer of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower. After studying a picture of Richard III, Grant decides that he has the face of a judge not a criminal and is determined to fill his time while bedridden with learning as much about the man as possible.

Brent Carradine is introduced as Grant's partner in this investigation, and most of the remainder of the novel is dialog between the two of them weighing different sources of contemporary information regarding Richard. The revisionist argument for Richard's innocence is very clearly laid out through Grant and Brent researching his case. They quite thoroughly consider each person involved before and after Richard's death and become irate that accepted history could be so obviously distorted. Their conversations reminded me of similar rants that my poor husband has had to endure whenever I read about Richard.

Tey also includes other quips about historical falsehoods that are readily accepted as fact which helps aid the reader in believing that we could be wrong about poor Richard as well. So the book that I was anxious to read but disappointed in at the beginning ended up captivating me in the end. I read it within 24 hours. Though I was familiar with the information presented, I think that it would be a great introduction to anyone who is interested in the Ricardian revisionist theories. This is a novel but reads like well written non-fiction, an excellent presentation of Richard's character and the case against him.(less)

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Mar 11, 2008 Leta rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 case from a policeman's perspective making wha...more

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Aug 06, 2007 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

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

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 05, 2009 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kate by: Danelle, I think

Shelves: mystery

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 nurses' schoolbooks and va...more

5 likes · like · see review

Nov 16, 2011 Karla (Mossy Love Grotto) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, monarchs-plantagenets, cuz-my-sis-wuvs-me, overrated, 2-stars, zzzzzz, son-i-am-disappoint, richard-iii

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 the face of an evil mu...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, mystery-crime-thriller, read-2013

This is liking sitting in your adored, aged auntie's parlour on a warm summer's day (though she still has the heat cranked up) drinking tea, eating shortbread and trying desperately to keep your eyes open. Your auntie is telling you the family stories you've heard a hundred times before, but every once in a while she drops in a tidbit of gossip that knocks you out of your drowsy state - you realize she's revealing second cousin Tom really isn't Uncle Phil's son or that your Aunt Bevil didn't mov...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Maudie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Like countless others before me, I first became acquainted with Richard III through the harsh eyes of Shakespeare...but it was my literature teacher, Mrs. Lavender, who taught me to temper Shakespeare's words and see Richard through a softer lens.

Mrs. Lavender was a wee bit of a woman with a mass of reddish hair pulled up into a top-knot that wobbled and shook when she was passionate about something and, yes, she wore cardigans (often lavender) with plaid skirts and sensible shoes. But, Mrs. Lav...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Rick Strong rated it 5 of 5 stars

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 know Richard III as t...more

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Oct 29, 2008 Sherry (sethurner) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller, fiction, books-about-books, book-group, read-multiple-times, history

"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 the Tower of L...more

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Sep 09, 2008 Tippi rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 "read faces."

The book never claims...more

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Aug 11, 2008 Bree rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

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 of British style a...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Ebookwormy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, history

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 exposure than the a...more

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Feb 29, 2008 Meagan rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 viewing, the book falls shor...more

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Mar 19, 2007 Claire rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History nerds and mystery buffs

Shelves: my-happy-books, five-stars, mysteries

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 researc...more

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May 18, 2010 Julie Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars

#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 their sources. This is a...more

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Aug 06, 2008 Lexi rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

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 suspenseful...more

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Apr 10, 2009 Trix rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who likes history.

Shelves: classics, fiction, historical-fiction

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 dated now...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Andrea rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Andrea by: Sarah Rees Brennan

Shelves: 2013, mystery

I kept hearing about this one when they found Richard III a few weeks ago. Then it turned up in a used bookstore when I was waiting about for John in Tuscaloosa, so I picked it up.

It's a clever historical mystery tackled by a bed-ridden detective. A lot of time is spent on the problems of history, but while this book is convincing you to take popular history with a grain of salt, you should also be ware to take its history with the same type of care. It did spur a little research on my part, th...more

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Oct 02, 2007 Rory rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of English history

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 detective tryi...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Erik Graff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anglo-Americans

Recommended to Erik by: Janny Marie Willis

Shelves: literature

My girlfriend from senior year of college through most of seminary, Janny, was a mystery fan like I was a science fiction fan and was often recommending books to me. I tried a few classics, but wasn't much moved. The great exception was Josephine Tey's (aka Elizabeth Mackintosh, 7/25/1896–2/13/1952) historical mystery which I only read after Janny had gone West, leaving the book behind. This one was great fun, being a tendentious work of historical detection regarding the purported crimes of Kin...more

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Sep 29, 2007 Jackie "the Librarian" rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history buffs

Shelves: mysteries, classicsworthreading, favorites

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 and fa...more

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Dec 07, 2010 Kirsty Darbyshire 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 Inspecto

...more

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Mar 27, 2009 Bruce rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 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 first appeared. In this, it is not unlike Shakespeare’s success at turning history into popular entertainment in his series of plays on the War of the Roses that culminated with “Richard III.” The works share more than an intriguing central character.

But what of the character of this English king who, although he ruled for only a little over two years, is still the source of vigorous debate between his detractors and supporters? Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard takes on the case out of boredom caused by forced confinement. While waiting for a broken leg to heal, he becomes fascinated by a portrait of Richard. To Grant, with the eye of a detective, he looks like a man who should be on the bench deciding the case, not someone on the stand accused of the cold-blooded murder of his two young nephews for political gain. But, as a policeman, Grant knows that cases aren’t solved by hunches or clues they’re solved by taking statements. Fortunately, a friend steers someone his way who’s eager to do the legwork of research and round up the statements, American amateur historian Brent Carradine. As Carradine digs up the documentation, Grant ponders the evidence and how it all fits together and who would stand to gain by the princes’ death.

Actor Derek Jacobi gives a superb reading. His American accent for Carradine is good, if not perfect, but Grant and all the other British characters are flawless. It’s little wonder that Booklist selected it as one of the “Top 10 Mystery Audiobooks” in 2001.

Narkiewicz, Beverly S. “Honk If You Love Richard III.” New York Times (May 21, 2000); page TR10

Harris, Karen. “Top 10 Mystery Audiobooks.” Booklist (May 1, 2001) page 1616

“Second Reading: Josephine Tey: Sleuthing Into The Mystery of History.” The Washington Post (March 12, 2003) page C01
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Dec 12, 2008 MAP rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery

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 mystery is...more

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About Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, 'The Man in the Queue' (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot, whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929...more Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother's first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels featuring Scotland Yard's Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, 'The Man in the Queue' (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot, whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929 novels, 'Kit An Unvarnished History'. She also used the Daviot by-line for a biography of the 17th century cavalry leader John Graham, which was entitled 'Claverhouse' (1937).

Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The district of Daviot, near her home of Inverness in Scotland, was a location her family had vacationed. The name Gordon does not appear in either her family or her history.

Elizabeth Mackintosh came of age during World War I, attending Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England during the years 1915-1918. Upon graduation, she became a physical training instructor for eight years. In 1926, her mother died and she returned home to Inverness to care for her invalid father. Busy with household duties, she turned to writing as a diversion, and was successful in creating a second career.

Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of her novels, 'A Shilling for Candles' (1936) as 'Young and Innocent' in 1937 and two other of her novels have been made into films, 'The Franchise Affair' (1948), filmed in 1950, and 'Brat Farrar' (1949), filmed as 'Paranoiac' in 1963. In addition a number of her works have been dramatised for radio.

Her novel 'The Daughter of Time' (1951) was voted the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association in 1990.

Miss Mackintosh never married, and died at the age of 55, in London. A shy woman, she is reported to have been somewhat of a mystery even to her intimate friends. While her death seems to have been a surprise, there is some indication she may have known she was fatally ill for some time prior to her passing.(less)

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The Franchise Affair (Inspector Alan Grant)

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“It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don't want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed.

Very odd, isn't it.” — 10 people liked it

“The truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in a paper, the sale of a house, the price of a ring.” — 5 people liked it

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The Daughter of Time (Inspector Alan Grant #5)

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