2007 mystery/thriller, first in its series. In 1932, Lady Victoria
Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie ("Georgie"), thirty-fourth in line to the
throne, is desperate to get away from her brother's frozen castle in
Scotland, and unwilling to be married off to Prince Siegfried of
Romania, but is without funds of her own, so she travels to London to
try to make her own way in life. Things rapidly become excessively
complicated.
All right, there's not all that much of a mystery here: a body in
a bath, a Most Obvious Suspect, and a Least Obvious Suspect. But
while there's a nod to the deductive process, this is mostly a book about
people, particularly Georgie herself and her observations on life.
My grandmother was the least attractive of Queen Victoria's
daughters, who consequently never managed to snare a Romanov or a
Kaiser, for which I am truly grateful and I expect she was too.
Instead she was hitched to a dreary Scottish baron who was bribed
with a dukedom for taking her off the old queen's hands. In due time
she dutifully produced my father, the second duke, before succumbing
to the sort of diseases brought on by inbreeding and too much fresh
air.
She's the sort of character who has useful friends rather than the
sort of character who has a bunch of skills in her own right, but she
remains bright and breezy even when the situation is desperate, and
that's enjoyable in itself.
"It's certainly not the brightest thing to have done," she said,
"but your brother was never noted for his high intellect, was he?"
"Even Binky couldn't be that stupid, surely." I heard the note of
uncertainty creep into my voice.
An attempt at a love triangle falls a little flat since it's too clear
what's going on, but there's good integration with actual people.
There's not much spying in this book, though Queen Mary asks Georgie
to take a look at that Simpson woman and see how serious the Prince of
Wales really is about her.
Fun, but formulaic; I'd place this around the level of the various
Charlotte MacLeod series I've been reading recently. I'll read more,
but I'm going to treat these similarly as short palate-cleaners
between more serious books. Followed by A Royal Pain.
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