Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

As a book lover, I frequent several blogs, message boards, and other websites that have to do with books. For several years, I've seen lots of other people mention Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey as a favorite book. I've read other books by Tey--including Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair--that I've absolutely loved, so Daughter of Time became one of those books that sits on my shelves, unread, because I enjoyed having it to look forward to. After all, if it made so many other readers' list of favorite books while the Tey books I loved didn't, it must be an outstanding book, right?

Unfortunately, this one disappointed me. I didn't even like it as well as A Shilling for Candles, which had been my least favorite Tey.

In Daughter of Time, Inspector Alan Grant is confined to a hospital bed while he recovers from a broken leg. He becomes obsessed with the story of Richard III, who supposedly murdered his own nephews while they were still children. He sets out (still from his hospital bed) to determine who really killed the Princes in the Tower.

My main beef with this book is that it can't decide whether it's a novel or a textbook. The prose isn't terrible, but the dialog is stilted and artificial, and there aren't any citations or any other information about the research Grant does so it's impossible to tell what's real and what isn't. As such, I found the book worthless from both an entertainment and an educational perspective.

For readers who want to try Tey, I suggest starting with Brat Farrar, The Franchise Affair, or Miss Pym Disposes. There are a few more Teys that I haven't read yet but I'll report back here when I do.