DAUGHTER OF TIME
- Book Review,
by Josephine Tey
Amazon.com
Josephine Tey is often referred to as the mystery writer for people who don't like mysteries. Her skills at character development and mood setting, and her tendency to focus on themes not usually touched upon by mystery writers, have earned her a vast and appreciative audience. In Daughter of Time, Tey focuses on the legend of Richard III, the evil hunchback of British history accused of murdering his young nephews. While at a London hospital recuperating from a fall, Inspector Alan Grant becomes fascinated by a portrait of King Richard. A student of human faces, Grant cannot believe that the man in the picture would kill his own nephews. With an American researcher's help, Grant delves into his country's history to discover just what kind of man Richard Plantagenet was and who really killed the little princes.
From AudioFile
While Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard looks for a way to make his convalescence in a hospital bed less tedious, his eye falls on a portrait of Richard III. Grant's schoolboy memory of the king who murdered his two nephews suddenly sparks another line of reasoning for the misdeed, and the reader is treated to a new answer to the killings in the Tower. All of the action delights Derek Jacobi, who reads as if he is sitting solo on a stage, speaking to an audience that has come to hear him solve this mystery. He talks to this audience. He talks to the other characters in the book. It is a complete performance. The publisher has enclosed a card with a listing of several generations of Richards and Henrys and Edwards, which will be helpful to listeners who are not driving as they listen. J.P. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Vickie Sears
Since its publication in 1951, Josephine Tey's insightful mystery, The Daughter of Time has become a major resource on the death of the nephews of Richard III. It opens with a bored Detective Alan Grant, stuck in his hospital bed with a wounded hip and broken leg. His actress-friend, Marta Hallard, notices he is not reading and brings him some portraits to occupy his mind. Alan Grant becomes transfixed with the face of Richard III, which "had that incommunicable, that indescribable look that childhood suffering leaves behind." Thus begins Grant's travel through time to solve a five-hundred-year-old mystery: did Richard III kill his two nephews and have them buried in the Tower of London in order to eliminate all possible contenders for the throne? Initially Grant drafts all his friends to help him research; finally he hires Mr. Carradine as a real research assistant. Real life history is related to the audience through the reading of the characters, especially the frustrated curmudgeon, Detective Grant. Due to the detective's confinement, there is far less of the fast-paced action one often associates with mysteries, but the dialogue and interplay between Grant and Carradine is crisp and wonderful, and the conclusion is fascinating. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.
Review
Boston Sunday GlobeThe unalloyed pleasure of watching a really cultivated mind in action! Buy and cherish!
Review
Boston Sunday Globe The unalloyed pleasure of watching a really cultivated mind in action! Buy and cherish!
Book Description
Josephine Tey re-creates one of history's most famous -- and vicious -- crimes in her classic bestselling novel, a must read for connoisseurs of fiction, now with a new introduction by Robert BarnardInspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains -- a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Little Princes in the Tower.The Daughter of Time is an ingeniously plotted, beautifully written, and suspenseful tale, a supreme achievement from one of mystery writing's most gifted masters.
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