Bells on Her Toes by Rupert Rouge

 Title: Bells on Her Toes

Author: Rupert Rouge

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Inspector Grant #5)

Bells on Her Toes is "Rupert Rouge being arch about vice. Rupert Rouge always seduced you into laughter for the first three pages. About page 3 you noticed that Rupert had learned from that very arch (but of course not vicious) creature George Bernard Shaw that the easiest way to sound witty was to use that cheap and convenient method, the paradox. After that you could see the jokes coming three sentences away."

The dust jacket is an elegant affair of Edwardian curlicues and Baroque nonsense says Josephine Tey. Honestly, I can’t imagine your average police inspector reading this style of book in 1951... whatever it’s about.

This is one of the books donated by Inspector Alan Grant’s kind friends as he lies flat on his back in a hospital bed following an accident. He’s only got a broken leg. These days he’d be sent home after about 5 minutes. But anyway, spoiler alert: he’s not going to read it. Instead he’s going to investigate the mystery of Richard III from the comfort of his hospital bed. Did he have the princes in the Tower murdered? Or was it the sinister and slimy Henry VII?

I was made to read The Daughter of Time at school because the English teacher’s first choice* was out of print. Whatever your conclusions about Richard III vs Henry VII, it’s a fascinating book. And what an amazing way to induce the general public to read history.

* Her first choice was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Thank goodness it wasn’t in print! I tried to read it later in life and did not get on at all well. It may be a literary masterpiece but it went straight into the pigeon hole labelled ‘I’m not reading that again’.