Josephine Tey is renowned for writing contemporary novels that refer to older mysteries. The Daughter of Time was unquestionably about an injured police Inspector learning about Richard III and the “Princes” – a device borrowed by Colin Dexter. Brat Farrar was about a missing boy who seems to reappear but whose identity is doubted, for a reason, by his brother – a possible reference to Henry VII and the “Princes”, as well as the Tichborne case.
Once more, a crime has seemingly been committed and once more Alan Grant is called upon. A teenage girl, based upon the Elizabeth Canning case some three centuries earlier, alleges that a local mother and daughter kidnapped her. The women approach a local solicitor following their ostracism and there is a surprise ending .
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