Chosen as one of the "Greatest Mystery Novels of All Time" by the Mystery Guild of America, "Daughter of Time" centers around Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, who is recovering in the hospital from a broken leg. When the pile of bestselling novels and gossipy tell-alls fail to interest him, his actress friend Marta Hallard, suggests he interest himself in solving a mystery. To that end, she arrives the next day with a stack of portraits from history, portraits associated with a mystery, including Lucrezia Borgia and the lost dauphin of France, Louis XVII. Grant's fancy falls on a picture of Richard III, known to history as the murderer of the young princes in the tower. He is intrigued by the portrait because the subject's peaceful countenance seems so at odds with the monster portrayed in history books.
The story continues as Grant, with the help of American stage hanger-on and library scholar Brent Carradine, scours history books in an attempt to learn about the "real" Richard III. We are treated to Sir Thomas More's account of his life (too late and too gossipy) as well as excerpts from the annuals of Parliament. The tale that enfolds is anything but ancient. It is full of greed, ambition, deceit, and murder.
Tey's brilliance is that the story involves primarily two characters -- one living and one dead for centuries -- and no fancy settings or props. Every work is carefully considered, and the result turns an old history lesson into a page-turner.
Josephine Tey is the pseudonym of Elizabeth MacIntosh, a Scottish writer who lived and wrote during the "Golden Age of British Crime Fiction," roughly between 1920 and 1950. She is the author of eight mystery novels, six of which feature Inspector Adam Grant. She died in 1952. Little else is known of her life.
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