Josephine Tey II

Her most prominent detective character is Alan Grant, who appears in 6 novels. She also wrote a mystery called the Franchise Affair, which is based on an eighteenth century mystery case set in modern times. One of her best known novels is Daughter of Time which is an odd mystery where Grant is confined to a hospital bed after a bad fall. Bored, he looks at some pictures brought in by a friend, post cards of portaits in the National Gallery. He is taken with the picture of Richard III, and starts to read up about him, and to investigate the allegation that Richard killed his 2 nephews. It is a novel that puts me off, as Grant decides that the picture shows a good man and that therefore he could not have done the murders of the 2 princes. He gets friends to help him by looking up documents and finding books for him and he finally comes to the conclusion that Richard is not guilty and that the murders were done by Henry VII. I feel that Tey is refusing to read any evidence that the boys were probably murdered by Richard. Tey led a quiet life, in Scotland, mostly concentrating on her writing. She became ill and became even more private, not wanting to see her friends when she was seriously ill. She was looked after by her sister and died in 1952, aged only 55. Her last novel was published posthumously. She is an interesting person even though she's not my favourite mystery novelist.