BookRank

Reading order

Inspector Alan Grant reading order

Josephine Tey

  1. The Man in the Queue1929
  2. A Shilling for Candles1936
  3. The Franchise Affair1948
  4. To Love and Be Wise1950
  5. The Daughter of Time1951
  6. The Singing Sands1952
7.67.6 / 10
107 ratings
Score
6 volumes
Volumes
1929–1952
Published
about 25 h
Reading time
Completed
Status
Crime & mystery
Genre

Quick answer

The Man in the Queue
Start withThe Man in the Queue1929 · Volume 1 of 6
Buy the first volumeListen to the audiobook

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Publication order

6 volumes1929–1952Completed

  • Josephine Tey’s Scotland Yard detective, Alan Grant, appears in six classic mysteries, but one stands far above the rest in readers’ minds: The Daughter of Time, in which Grant, bedridden in hospital with a broken leg, investigates from books and a portrait whether Richard III really murdered the Princes in the Tower.
  • It was voted the greatest crime novel of all time by British crime writers in 1990.
  • Start there; the others can be read in any order.

A plan for the whole series

6 volumes, 1,449 pages, about 25 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 5 weeks.

Stages

2 stages, with 1 short book from outside the series between them. You finish around December 7, 2026, 4 days later than in one go.

  1. Stage 118 habout 4 weeksby November 23, 2026
    • 1. The Man in the Queue1929 · 247 pages · 5 h
    • 2. A Shilling for Candles1936 · 217 pages · 4 h
    • 3. The Franchise Affair1948 · 288 pages · 5 h
    • 4. To Love and Be Wise1950 · 255 pages · 5 h
  2. Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.82 h, by November 27, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
  3. Stage 28 h11 daysby December 7, 2026
  4. The end of the series
    December 7, 2026
In one goDecember 3, 2026about 5 weeks
In stages, with breaksDecember 7, 2026about 6 weeks · +2 h of other books

We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.

How this plan is calculated

The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →

Every volume in order

Read: 0 of 6
  1. The Man in the Queue
    The Man in the Queue1929 · 26 ratings · Not ranked yetStart hereBuy
    –Not ranked yet
  2. A Shilling for Candles
    A Shilling for Candles1936 · Not ranked yetBuy
    –Not ranked yet
  3. The Franchise Affair
    The Franchise Affair1948 · 27 ratings · Not ranked yetBuy
    –Not ranked yet
  4. To Love and Be Wise
    To Love and Be Wise1950 · Not ranked yetBuy
    –Not ranked yet
  5. The Daughter of Time
    The Daughter of Time1951 · 107 ratings
    7.67.6 / 10
  6. The Singing Sands
    The Singing Sands1952 · 13 ratings · Not ranked yetBuy
    –Not ranked yet

Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026

Frequently asked questions

Which Inspector Alan Grant book is the longest?

“The Franchise Affair” is the longest at 288 pages; the shortest is “The Daughter of Time” with 207 pages.