From the Bookshelf of Retro Reads…

The Daughter of Time (Inspector Alan Grant, #5)

Josephine Tey

Start date: October 22, 2018

Finish date: November 15, 2018

Discussion: Buddy reads

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 34 topics — 989 comments total

Buddy reads

A City Of Bells - June 2021 read Spoilers thread!
By Carol She's S… , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah! · 8 posts · 17 views

last updated Jun 17, 2021 12:49PM

A City Of Bells - June 2021 read No spoilers thread
By Carol She's S… , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah! · 26 posts · 24 views

last updated Jun 14, 2021 12:18PM

showing 3 of 3 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Oct 22, 2018 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: oldies-but-goodies, england, mystery

Okay, now I’m convinced King Richard III didn’t have his two young nephews murdered in the Tower of London in the late 1400s. *gives Henry VII the hard side eye*

In this classic mystery by Josephine Tey, a laid-up British police inspector tries to prove, just for his own satisfaction, that Richard has been unfairly maligned by historians. An enthusiastic young American, an actress, and a nurse help out with his research. The novel ends up having quite a lot to say about human nature.

October 2018 ...more

65 likes · Like · see review

Oct 26, 2018 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-crime-whodunnit

Let me tell you about my one and only experience of being in a book club.

About twenty five years ago, a group of friends & friends-of-friends found out there was a government run group that would supply book clubs with the books & other materials they needed to run a monthly discussion. We all eagerly selected books we wanted to read, but, naively, most of us chose works by Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon Isabel Allende and other popular writers of the day. Unfortunately, these works were being sele Let me tell you about my one and only experience of being in a book club.

About twenty five years ago, a group of friends & friends-of-friends found out there was a government run group that would supply book clubs with the books & other materials they needed to run a monthly discussion. We all eagerly selected books we wanted to read, but, naively, most of us chose works by Margaret Atwood, Fay Weldon Isabel Allende and other popular writers of the day. Unfortunately, these works were being selected by every other book club in the country.But one woman wanted to read dreary, Russian classics. So that is what we were sent. Every. Single. Month. By the end of my time with this group, I couldn't even be bothered cracking the selections open.

The two exceptions to this were this book & a modern New Zealand classic, Season Of The Jew. Both of these books produced animated, thoughtful discussions & the women leading the reads did heaps of extra research. It was nice seeing what fun being part of a real life book club could be like, but I didn't join another one until I became a member of Goodreads. Online book clubs really work for me! If I can't get hold of (or don't like a choice) I don't read it.

This book remains an all time favourite, although I would now consider Brat Farrar as the best Tey I have read.

A bored Inspector Grant, hospitalised with a broken leg (you certainly wouldn't be in hospital for a lengthy convalescence for that in modern NZ!) with the help of some friends decided to investigate the disappearance of The Princes in the Tower like it was a modern police case. The original premise -that someone with as nice a face as Richard III couldn't be a murderer- well I could show you some baby faced modern NZ murderers. I'm not sure the timeline and all the reasoning worked for me, but I am happy to keep an open mind and (view spoiler) The premise was really original and worked well.

The title? From an old proverb;

Truth is the Daughter of Time.

...more

38 likes · Like · see review

Oct 27, 2018 Elinor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the perfect book cover, because this particular portrait of King Richard III by an unknown artist at the National Portrait Gallery becomes the basis for a murder investigation. Scotland Yard inspector Alan Grant is lying helpless in his London hospital bed with a broken leg when he becomes intrigued with the portrait. Richard's face, he concludes, is not that of a murderer -- in spite of the widespread belief that in 1483 he had his two little nephews imprisoned in the Tower of London, a ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Feb 06, 2017 Emmy B. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: star-rating-5, genre-mystery, genre-classic

Grant is a Scotland Yard inspector who suffered a serious injury and must now recuperate in hospital. Immobile and bored to tears, he finds entertainment in the mystery of the murder of the princes in the tower. In particular, he becomes fascinated by the widely accepted version of Richard III as a murderer and scheming monster. Using historical sources and the help of a dedicated researcher, and the cold logic of a Yard man, he gets to the bottom of what kind of a man Richard III really was, an Grant is a Scotland Yard inspector who suffered a serious injury and must now recuperate in hospital. Immobile and bored to tears, he finds entertainment in the mystery of the murder of the princes in the tower. In particular, he becomes fascinated by the widely accepted version of Richard III as a murderer and scheming monster. Using historical sources and the help of a dedicated researcher, and the cold logic of a Yard man, he gets to the bottom of what kind of a man Richard III really was, and who had actually killed the boys.

It might sound boring or tedious, but I promise it isn't. The investigation is as interesting and fascinating as any murder mystery you can read of that period. But it is also more than that. More than being merely an attempt to vindicate a person or charge a person with a crime, this book is, at its centre, about false history. It's about the way we remember the past, and how it can be the exact opposite of reality. It makes me think of the way we talk of fake news today, and how so many of us are comfortable living in our bubbles, rather than look for evidence and challenge our viewpoints.

As Grant's cousin so eloquently points out:

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.

As an aside, as a researcher myself, I found it mildly irritating and kind of amusing that Carradine, the dedicated young researcher who does the bulk of the work for Grant, ends up thanking Grant for this little intellectual escapade. From experience, let me tell you, Grant would have been the one thanking his younger friend. It's not easy sifting through historical sources, and while it can be fun to discover something new and exciting, most of the time it's dull and time-consuming. It's much easier to be presented with ready information, after all that is mundane, unnecessary, irrelevant, unclear, unreliable etc had been discarded. Grant got to do the fun bits, is what I'm saying. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Dec 18, 2016 Susan in Perthshire rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adventure

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

4 likes · Like · see review

Jan 01, 2021 Tuesdayschild rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2020-read, pub-1930-1950-s, 2020-audio, england, mystery-historical, baw-suggestions

2.5* I had to let the story sit for a bit before reviewing ....
I did enjoy have Derek Jacobi (Cadfael :-) ) read this to me, now for the book:
A hospitalised Inspector endeavours to solve the mystery of the two boys in the tower…. (view spoiler)
This was a nice follow on from a Philippa Gregory book I read a few years ago which featured R ...more

Like · see review

Dec 09, 2018 Kate rated it liked it

Not knowing much about English history and the rules for royal succession made this a difficult read. Even with the family trees in the front (which I referred to often) didn't help much because the same names are used multiple times.

It was difficult to stay awake while reading it due to my confusion or lack of knowledge regarding the theme.

What was interesting, was the idea of "tonypandy." When "everyone knows what happened without any evidence of its occurrence." It seems that revisionist vie ...more

Like · see review

Mar 28, 2023 Naga Sravika Bodapati rated it it was amazing

Quite a different form of unraveling a mystery. It is exciting at every turn and the reader also gets to play detective along with the fictional characters because all the facts and details are laid out right in front of them and only requires connecting A -> B -> C; Loved this read.

Like · see review