From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

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

Josephine Tey

Start date: June 1, 2023

Finish date: June 30, 2023

Discussion: Group reads

Why we're reading this: This classic was joint winner of a group poll.
[close] This classic was joint winner of a group poll.

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Group reads

* Nominations for January 2026 group read
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last updated 49 minutes ago

* Nov 25: Post After Post-Mortem (Robert Macdonald #11) by E C R Lorac (1936)
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last updated 4 hours, 51 min ago

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What Members Thought

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

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Aug 23, 2025 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: josephine-tey

Excellent read. Richard III villain or innocent. Grant is in hospital and bored out of his mind. He becomes interested in a photo of Richard III and begins an investigation into whether he really responsible for the murder of his two nephews in the Tower of London.

He finds that the facts do not match the perception and history that Richard III was a tyrant and monster. In reality the real monster was Henry VII. It’s a shame Richard was killed at the Battle of Bosworth and the Tudors were the vi ...more

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