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

by Josephine Tey

She smiled a very little, looking back from her present consequence to that young, tired, earnest creature she had been.

perhaps a series of small satisfactions scattered like sequins over the texture of everyday life was of greater worth than the academic satisfaction of owning a collection of fine objects at the back of a drawer.

was Grant’s belief that if you could not find out about a man, the next best way to arrive at an estimate of him was to find out about his mother.