Wednesday, July 13, 2011

THE DAUGHTER OF TIME

This was the first Josephine Tey book I ever read, way back in 1996; my father handed it to me during my freshman year of college because I had just read (and loved) Shakespeare’s Richard III. (I was also primed to read it because it gets a shout out in my beloved Tam Lin.) It’s an Inspector Grant mystery, but with a novelty twist: Grant is laid up in the hospital with a broken leg and, bored silly, he ends up investigating the murders of the princes in the Tower. I’ve said before how ridiculously seductive I find books that involve a lot of suspenseful historical researching (Possession is another), so of course this one grabbed me: I reread it in one sitting, on a flight from L.A. to Minneapolis, and was enthralled the whole time, even though I already knew the outcome: Grant proves, quite convincingly in my opinion, that Richard had no motive to commit the crime, whereas Henry Tudor did and certainly had reason to try to pin it on Richard (pro-Tudor historians such as Thomas More are definitely responsible for Richard’s portrayal, in Shakespeare and popular culture, as an evil hunchback).

The book definitely stands on its own enough that fans of historical mysteries can enjoy it without having read the rest of the Grant series (obviously, I existed quite happily for 14 years after reading this without feeling compelled to check out another), but this time around, after having read all the books in order, it was even more fun—I had a better sense of Grant’s personality and could recognize recurring characters like Sergeant Williams and Marta Hallard. This is one of Tey’s best works and definitely my favorite Grant book…at least so far; I still have one more to go.

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