The section through the forest plantation is also lovely, with foxglove, devil’s bit scabious, wood sorrel, tormentil, primrose, purple moor grass, hard fern, shield ferns and bent grasses, to mention but a few, fringing the Sitka Spruce plantation with pine. He may not play a big role in the story, but Gallacher is someone you can easily visualise and imagine, due to Tey’s abilities to create characters. In 1989 Colin Dexter reprised the hospital-bound detective motif of Daughter of Time in his Inspector Morse novel The Wench is Dead, which was also made into an episode in the Morse television series. Yet on the other hand she does the classic thing of firstly telling him essentially to just get on with things and then underpinning this advice with an account of a minor claustrophobia experience she had whilst down a mine shaft, which does not really compare with Inspector Grant’s condition where he struggles to sit in a car. For example as a detective Inspector Grant is associated with notions of logic and reason, yet Inspector Grant deems his claustrophobia episodes as ‘unconditional surrender to the forces of Unreason.

Grant’s relatives in Scotland are nicely sketched in, his cousin Laura with whom he is still a little in love but who is married to his old school friend, and their young son Pat who idolises Grant, his affection taking the form of presents of hideous fishing lures. Her only non-fiction book, Claverhouse, was written as a vindication of John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee, whom she regarded as a libeled hero: "It is strange that a man whose life was so simple in pattern and so forthright in spirit should have become a peg for every legend, bloody or brave, that belonged to his time. Homosexual desire, cross-dressing, sexual perversion – they were all hinted at, glimpsed in the shadows as a door closed or a curtain twitched. The walk can be extended to Ockle for a strenuous, scenic, long distance trek along the old crofter’s path between Acharacle and Ockle. There is a car park located 50 yards before the Carraig Fhada Lighthouse, and from there it’s a five-minute walk to the beach.The minor characters too are well drawn, with the exception of Tad the stereotyped American and Wee Archie the caricatured Scottish nationalist. Turn right at the sign and descend towards the beach through a short stretch of coniferous woodland and then onto to heath before reaching the golden sands. The name Singing Sands comes from the sound the sands make when your boots or shoes are scuffed against the surface - there are also Singing Sands beaches in Ardnamurchan and on the Isle of Eigg. Grant comes to the firm conclusion that King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the princes. I don’t think I’d thought much about what was wrong with Grant, so I found your analysis interesting and helpful.

This is a lovely section of the walk, and provides a good opportunity to listen out for the drumming of woodpeckers, and to look out for coal tits, siskins and crossbills feeding in the tree tops. 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. Inspector Grant is envisaging many weeks happily fishing, an activity he sees as ‘something between a sport and a religion. Moving onto the union between Scotland and England, Inspector Grant describes it in positive terms saying that ‘Scotland stepped thankfully on to England’s bandwagon, and fell heir to all the benefits. He had been bored by the job before he had been a week at it, but he had found it a rich lode and he stayed to mine it… For twenty years they had paid up, weary and browbeaten and blackmailed.She wrote about a dozen one-act plays and another dozen full-length plays, many with biblical or historical themes, under the name of Gordon Daviot but none of these received notable success.

When walking along this beach, if you slide your shoes against the sand, it will make a singing sound. Yet even he is aware that this is more than idle curiosity, perceiving that unravelling this mystery is a ‘refuge’ for him from his problems: ‘he had gone out to look for B seven and had found himself.The Singing Sands begins with Inspector Grant going on an overnight train to Scotland, where he is to spend his sick leave in the highlands with his school friend Tommy, who is married to Grant’s cousin Laura and who he used to have feelings for. I agree the central crime is probably not as strong as it should be, the focus in this story is not on the puzzle but Inspector Grant. Although his claustrophobia is his main problem, I think another issue with Inspector Grant also surfaces in the novel and that is with his relationships, which suffer due to his addiction to work.

Avalanches occur naturally during storms, but can also be created by people pushing sand down a dune face. Additionally, his illness leads to a sense of ostracism from his work colleagues, which is evidenced when his chief Bryce sends him a snubbing letter, which makes Inspector Grant feel like ‘an outsider. g. faster and easier ways of travelling have taken some of the romance or mystery out of travelling, which is present in GAD holiday novels. Its success was such that it transferred to the New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre) in 1933, for a year-long run.There is also elegant humor in this book, such as Murdo Gallacher, Grant’s young cousin Pat, and the guest house on the island. Eventually though Laura does find out about Inspector Grant’s claustrophobia and her response to it is interesting. She taught physical training at various schools in England and Scotland and during her vacations worked at a convalescent home in Inverness as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse.