Can you have a crime novel where the detective is confined to bed throughout? Why not? Colin Dexter used it in a Morse book (The Wench is Dead), but veteran golden-age author Joesphine Tey did it first in this, her last published novel. Alan Grant (not the one from Jurassic Park, as far as we know) is laid up in hospital with a broken leg. Bored and restless, he decides to try to solve the mystery of the princes in the Tower – was Richard III really the villain the Tudors made him out to be? With the help of various friends and books and paintings, he comes up with his solution.
You should read it because: it’s interesting with the recent finding of Richard’s body; it’s a great study in how to construct a gripping crime story without ever leaving one room or having a body or any living suspects; you want to find out what hospitals were like when they didn’t send you home after an hour with a large pack of paracetamol.
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