"well crafted Depression Era mystery"

The year is 1932 and Great Britain is in the middle of the Depression which is even affecting the aristocracy. Lady Victoria Georgiana "Georgie" Charlotte Eugenie is ultra feeling the pinch of poverty while living with her brother Binky the Duke of Rannoch at Rannoch Castle in the wilds of Scotland. When she hears him and her sister-in-law trying to marry her off to Prince Siegfried of Romania, who she believes has the Fish-Face of a cod, she bolts for London.

She works at Harrods for only a few hours before her own mother gets her fired. While learning to live in a house without any servants Binky comes on a business matter. Gaston de Mauxville has proof that her father gambled Rannoch Castle away to him. When Georgie comes back to Rannoch House after leaving on an errand she finds de Mauxville dead in the bathtub and Binky nowhere to be found. When Scotland Yard arrests him for the murder of de Mauxville Georgie tries to find out who the really killer is because Binky is too wishy-washy to even contemplate murder. A series of accidents any one of which could have killed Georgie has her wondering if someone close to her is the killer

Rhys Bowen has two successful historical mystery series to her credit and this book starts a fresh one that will succeed as well. It is very different in tone and scope from her other words; as she takes reader into the lives of the aristocracy at a time when poverty is beginning to take root. Readers will adore Georgie who finds that life is better when she ignores her thirty something line to the crown so she can live life her way. HER ROYAL SPYNESS is a well crafted Depression Era mystery with an interesting pool of suspects.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 24, 2007

Summary

The Agatha Award winner debuts a 1930s London mystery series, featuring a penniless twenty-something member of the extended royal family.

Her ridiculously long name is Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch. And she is flat broke. As the thirty-fourth in line for the throne, she has been taught only a few things, among them, the perfect curtsey. But when her brother cuts off her allowance, she leaves Scotland, and her fiancé Fish-Face, for London, where she has:

a) worked behind a cosmetics counter—and gotten sacked after five hours
b) started to fall for a quite unsuitable minor royal
c) made some money housekeeping (incognita, of course), and
d) been summoned by the Queen to spy on her playboy son

Then an arrogant Frenchman, who wants her family's 800-year-old estate for himself, winds up dead in her bathtub. Now her most important job is to clear her very long family name.