The Daughter of Time was the wrong genre for what it intended to do. Josephine Tey set out to restore the reputation of the much-maligned Richard III, which is a worthy goal - he was a complicated man, not the hunchbacked personification of evil that some people remember him to be. If she wanted, she could have made it into real scholarship, as people certainly do still publish texts about Richard III, he's quite controversial. But she sets her research against a very dull backdrop of an inspector laid up in a hospital bed, and really he just talks to people, most exclaiming about the untrustworthiness of history texts.

Thomas More gets sarcastically called "the sainted More" for his biased account literally almost every time he's mentioned, which is annoying. But Josephine Tey is guilty of exactly his opposite - by arguing so hard and one-sidedly for Richard's innocence, she makes him into Saint Richard, who is just as unrealistic as the aforementioned personification of evil. If there is anything Tey and her readers should take away from this book, it's not that Richard was an innocent lamb. But history is more nuanced than could ever be recorded, and the biases of both author and reader shape a simplified narrative out of it to their own ends. ( )

Playing detectives with a historical narrative, Josephine Tey creates a compelling case for Richard III, playing devil's advocate and cleverly using thriller and mystery conventions to deliver a case for the defence which we don't question - as our detective solves the murder mystery. Very readable, and a book that's created generations of advocates for Richard Crookback.

I read this in 1961, it is the most memorable, in every respect, mystery that I ever read. A classic,"sui generis", not to be missed! ( )

I can't recommend this highly enough. Years ago it was the first eye opener for me that history might not be all the textbooks said it was, but this time I simply enjoyed the humor and interactions of the characters. I think it possible that Richard III is right up there with Hamlet in my list of "dreamy maligned heroes." Such a great, fast read. ( )

good book, but there are many names to keep track of (History of England in late 1400's-early 1500's.) ( )