I chose this book for my book group to read this month. I haven't read it in thirty years or more and I'd forgotten how it's slow to get going and also assumes more knowledge of British history than I have.
Whenever a list of the most popular mysteries is drawn up though, this finishes near the top. Megan also reminded me that Phil and I insisted she read it and she found it fairly boring. It does not have the strength of a lot of mysteries or novels that use the show don't tell device. Most of this book is Tey's detective Alan Grant solving this mystery from his sick bed. It is almost all tell. But Richard III innocence or guilt in murdering his two child nephews to win him the throne is a fascinating story. And a novel and original mystery for me.
So did Shakespeare get it right or not. What do you think? Here's a nice piece from 2015 (after his bones were discovered in a parking lot) in the New Yorker. They have made a movie of that called THE LOST KING.
7 comments:
Well, of course, Shakespeare wasn't ever too worried about conforming to the facts of a matter, any more than he shied away from retelling others' stories...one of the first texts I tried to read in (somewhat antiquated) Spanish was the source story for THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, as I recall...
And some writers (Borges, of course, and his were absolutely the first I attempted to read in Spanish) make tell, don't show, a fascinating process...haven't ever tried the Tey. How did the group as a whole take to it?
Oh, that's a good choice, Patti, and I'm glad book clubs are still discussing it. It's an interesting question about the Princes in the Tower...
I liked THE DAUGHTER OF TIME when I read it decades ago. Sure, it starts off slowly, but the puzzle held my attention.
No, I don't think Shakespeare got it right.
I always liked it a lot. I also liked Colin Dexter's very similar book, with Morse in bed in the hospital the entire book, trying (like Tey's Alan Grant) to.be a true armchair detective.
Sorry, the Morse title was THE WENCH IS DEAD.
Love all Morse books but I didn't remember that one was done similarly. Not a famous murder though?
No. It might have been based on a real murder. I can't remember at this time. It was a murder on a canal boat in 1859, or thereabouts. Morse gathers information about it and tries to solve it from his hospital bed.
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