Emily B. (LibraryEm42) reviewed on 7/17/2011 + 26 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 4

This book is an example of what I mean when I tell people history is like a detective story: you don't have all the information, your witnesses might be mistaken or lying (and/or dead), you might not have a body, and you can probably piece together several plausible explanations of whodunnit.

In this book, a Scotland Yard detective who's stuck in the hospital starts investigating Richard III, and discovers that the one-sentence accounts his old schoolbooks gave (basically, "Richard was bad and killed his brother and the princes") are covering up a much more complicated story of missing information, bias, and propaganda. A lot of textbook-style history is like this, which is a shame, because it's so much more interesting when you don't try to force it into a simplistic, pre-determined story with no room for doubt or alternate interpretations!

For anyone who wants to know more about the history and debates over Richard III, you can check out the non-fiction account in "Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes" by Bertram Fields.

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