A further crime novel, The Singing Sands, was found in her papers and published posthumously.Ībout a dozen one-act plays and another dozen full-length plays were written under the name of Gordon Daviot. The Daughter of Time was the last of Tey's books published during her lifetime. The Franchise Affair also has a historical context: although set in the 1940s, it is based on the 18th-century case of Elizabeth Canning. In 1990, The Daughter of Time was selected by the British Crime Writers' Association as the greatest mystery novel of all time The Franchise Affair was 11th on the same list of 100 books. Grant comes to the firm conclusion that King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. (Grant appears in a sixth, The Franchise Affair, as a minor character.) The most famous of these is The Daughter of Time, in which Grant, laid up in hospital, has friends research reference books and contemporary documents so that he can puzzle out the mystery of whether King Richard III of England murdered his nephews, the Princes in the Tower.

In five of the mystery novels, all of which except the first she wrote under the name of Tey, the hero is Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant. She also wrote as Gordon Daviot, under which name she wrote plays with an historical theme.

Josephine Tey was a pseudonym used by Elizabeth Mackintosh (25 July 1896 – 13 February 1952), a Scottish author best known for her mystery novels. With the wit and guile that have made Inspector Grant a favorite of mystery fans, the inspector sets about discovering just how a murder occurred among so many witnesses, none of whom saw a thing.

Thinking he had fainted, a spectator moved to help, but recoiled in horror from what lay before him: the man in the queue had a small silver dagger neatly plunged into his back. But one man, his head sunk down upon his chest, slowly sank to his knees and then, still more slowly, keeled over on his face. Suddenly, the line began to move, forming a wedge before the open doors as hopeful theatergoers nudged their way forward. London’s favorite musical comedy of the past two years was finishing its run at the end of the week. Inspector Alan Grant searches for the identity of a man killed in the line at a theater and for the identity of the killer-whom no one saw.Ī long line had formed for the standing-room-only section of the Woffington Theatre. Mackintosh, Elizabeth Writing under the pseudonym: Daviot, Gordon The Man in the Queue (Inspector Alan Grant #1)

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey