“The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey and Robert Barnard (Intro) – 500 Years too Late

Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, while being the best, is not spared from the ravages of life, as a broken leg is keeping him away from his duty. Not being the kind of man to lazily stumble around the house all day long, Alan becomes fascinated by Richard III, a feeling reinforced by a modern portrait of the man which goes against all common knowledge, depicting him as an honest, noble and sensitive man. 

It doesn’t take much to push Grant to start his own investigation into the murder of the Little Princes in the tower, and even though he may be coming about 500 years late for the job, he is determined to get to the bottom of things and find out what kind of man Richard III truly was. With the help of an American scholar and a British museum, he sets out on an adventure that spans countless years and brings up more questions than answers.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is a very curious and surely uncommon detective novel, investigating a case in which all the participants are long dead and forgotten. In this novel, what really matters is not catching the culprit, but rather, the hunt for the truth itself. Trey does a wonderful job at weaving a web of mystery with slight holes here and there to create doubt and keep the reader guessing as to how things really might have been. 

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Book cover)
I have to say, it is a great pleasure to watch two intellectual protagonists try and solve a case from so far away in the past that all they have to go on are historical records and letters. Despite the conclusion of the investigation bearing no real danger for anyone, Trey does manage to make it suspenseful, and on many occasions it does feel like you are spirited away to the 15th century during those trying times for Richard III.

The story is very easy and enthralling to follow, mainly because of its very clear, logical and step-by-step presentation given by Grant. He precisely outlines his thoughts, hypotheses and theories, sparing no detail of the investigation from the reader.

In the end, you feel like you are literally sitting alongside with him, marching through the annals of history while trying to bring an undisputable reality to light, in the name of the truth, if nothing else. It certainly isn’t your run-of-the-mill detective story, but I do highly recommend it to fans of the genre, especially the ones who prefer slower works of writing.

Josephine Tey (Elizabeth Mackintosh) (July 25, 1896 - February 13, 1952)

Josephine Tey (Elizabeth Mackintosh)
(July 25, 1896 - February 13, 1952)


Personal site

Josephine Tey is a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh. Elizabeth Mackintosh was a Scottish author whose most famous works were her mystery novels. She was also known to write under the pseudonyms of Josephine Tey and Gordon Daviot.

Amongst her many works stands out the ever-notable The Daughter of Time, a book that was actually voted in 1990 as the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more