If you’ve ever been stuck in a hospital bed with nothing but your thoughts and a stack of old portraits, you might end up doing what Alan Grant did. Grant is the protagonist of The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, and he's not your typical hard-boiled detective. He’s a Scotland Yard inspector sidelined by a broken leg, staring at the ceiling and dying of boredom. Most people in that situation would just do a crossword or binge-watch whatever the 1951 equivalent of Netflix was. Instead, Grant decides to solve a five-hundred-year-old cold case: Did Richard III actually kill the Princes in the Tower?
It sounds dry. It’s not.
This book basically reinvented the historical mystery genre. Josephine Tey—the pen name for Elizabeth MacKintosh—took a gamble here. She wrote a detective novel where the detective never leaves his bed and the "crime" happened in 1483. It shouldn't work. By all the rules of pacing and tension, it should be a total slog. But it isn’t. It’s a gripping psychological procedural that questions how we know what we think we know. It’s about "Tonypandy," a term Grant uses to describe historical myths that everyone accepts as truth despite the evidence staring them in the face.
Honestly, it’s kind of a slap in the face to traditional historians. Tey doesn't just present a story; she deconstructs the very idea of history as a series of facts.
The Face of a Murderer?
The whole thing starts with a picture. Grant considers himself a bit of an expert on faces—he thinks he can spot a criminal just by looking at their bone structure. When his friend Marta Hallard brings him a collection of historical portraits to keep him entertained, he finds himself mesmerized by a portrait of Richard III.
He doesn't see a monster. He doesn't see the "hunchbacked toad" that Shakespeare described.
Instead, he sees a man who looks like a judge. Or maybe a monk. Someone burdened by responsibility and perhaps a little bit of grief. This sets him off on a research binge that would make a modern-day Redditor proud. With the help of a young American researcher named Brent Carradine, Grant starts digging into the contemporary accounts of Richard’s reign.
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What they find is a massive gap between what the "history books" say and what the actual records from the time period reflect. For example, did you know that the "hunchback" thing was largely a Tudor invention? Or that Richard’s supposed victims—the two young princes—weren't actually reported missing until well after Richard himself was dead?
It’s wild. Tey uses Grant’s professional skepticism to poke holes in the Saint Thomas More version of history. She suggests that history isn't written by the winners; it's written by the winners' PR department. In this case, that was the Tudors, who had every reason to make Richard look like a child-killing psychopath to justify Henry VII taking the throne.
Why The Daughter of Time Still Matters Today
You might be wondering why a book from the fifties about a king from the 1400s is still worth your time. The answer is pretty simple: we live in the era of "fake news" and "alternative facts." The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey is arguably the first mainstream piece of fiction to tackle the concept of the echo chamber.
Grant realizes that most of what he "knows" about Richard III comes from schoolbooks that just repeated what earlier books said, which in turn repeated what Tudor propagandists said. It’s a game of historical telephone.
The Tonypandy Effect
Tey introduces the concept of "Tonypandy" through a story about a Welsh riot. The public "knows" the military opened fire on unarmed miners because that’s the story that survived. But the records show it didn't happen that way.
- It’s about the emotional power of a lie.
- It’s about how hard it is to dislodge a story once it becomes "common knowledge."
- It’s a warning to check your sources.
This isn't just about Richard III. It’s about how we perceive any public figure. Tey argues that once a person is labeled a villain, every action they ever took is reinterpreted to fit that label. If Richard gives money to the poor, the Tudor historians say he was trying to buy popularity. If he’s stern, he’s a tyrant. If he’s merciful, he’s weak. He can't win.
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The Detective Work of Brent Carradine
The dynamic between Grant and Carradine is where the book finds its legs. Carradine is the "boots on the ground," visiting the British Museum and looking up the Titulus Regius—the statute that actually declared Richard the rightful king and the princes illegitimate.
When you look at the timeline, the "murder" makes zero sense. If the princes were illegitimate, they weren't a threat to Richard's throne. But they were a massive threat to Henry VII, who needed to marry their sister, Elizabeth of York, to solidify his own claim. If the boys were alive, Henry’s claim was nonexistent.
Tey paints a picture of a legal and political landscape that is far more complex than a simple "evil uncle" narrative. She shows us a Richard who was a capable administrator, a man who was respected in the North of England, and someone who seemed genuinely shocked by the betrayals that led to his death at Bosworth Field.
Criticisms and Limitations
Now, to be fair, Tey isn't a neutral observer. She’s firmly on Team Richard. Modern historians, like those in the Richard III Society, have pointed out that while Tey was right about the Tudor propaganda, she might have swung the pendulum a bit too far the other way.
Some argue that Richard still had plenty of motive. Politics in the 15th century was a blood sport. Being "illegitimate" didn't stop people from trying to put you on a throne if you had a big enough army behind you.
Also, Grant’s "expertise" in reading faces is... let's call it dated. Physiognomy—the idea that you can tell someone's character from their facial features—is basically a pseudoscience. But within the context of the novel, it works as a character quirk. It's the "hunch" that starts the investigation, even if the actual evidence is what sustains it.
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The Legacy of Josephine Tey
Elizabeth MacKintosh was a bit of an enigma herself. She wrote plays under the name Gordon Daviot and mysteries as Tey. She was intensely private, rarely gave interviews, and died just as The Daughter of Time was becoming a global sensation.
She didn't write many Alan Grant books—only five or six, depending on how you count them. But this one? This one changed things. In 1990, the Crime Writers' Association voted it the greatest mystery novel of all time. Not The Big Sleep. Not The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. This one.
The title comes from an old proverb: "Truth is the daughter of time." It implies that eventually, the facts will surface, no matter how deep they've been buried by lies. It’s a hopeful message, even if the book itself is a bit cynical about human nature.
How to Read This Book Like a Pro
If you’re going to pick up a copy—and you should—don’t expect a high-speed chase. Expect a high-speed argument. It’s a book about the thrill of the library, the satisfaction of finding that one document that proves everyone else wrong.
- Look up the portrait. Seriously. Open Google Images and search for the National Portrait Gallery's image of Richard III while you read the first chapter. It makes Grant's obsession much more relatable.
- Don't worry about the names. The War of the Roses involves a dizzying number of Edwards, Henrys, and Richards. Just follow Grant’s lead. He simplifies it as he goes.
- Think about your own "Tonypandies." What things do we believe today just because "everyone knows" they're true?
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey isn't just a book for mystery fans. It's a book for anyone who hates being lied to. It’s for the skeptics, the researchers, and the people who aren't afraid to change their minds when presented with new data.
To dive deeper into the world of Alan Grant, start by looking for the 1951 Peter Davies first edition details or the Folio Society illustrated versions, which often include the portraits Grant describes. If you're interested in the historical side, transition from the novel to The Trial of Richard III or the actual archaeological reports from the 2012 discovery of his remains in a Leicester parking lot. You'll find that Tey’s fiction was startlingly close to the forensic reality discovered decades after her death.