Review: Her Royal Spyness

Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book reminded me strongly of Agatha Christie’s The Secret of Chimneys, The Seven Dials Mystery, and Why Didn't They Ask Evans?. The basic recipe is as follows: set the story in the 1920s–1930s; have a young heroine who is top-drawer, aka a Lady, but doesn’t necessarily follows the strict rules for nobility; throw in a couple of handsome men for good measure, and of course, you must add some dead body too. Then let the Lady become an amateur sleuth and find the murderer and the king of her heart. Do not forget to “flavour” your story with a dash of humour. If you do it correctly, your readers will have as much fun as I had reading this. I laughed out loud many times while reading this, despite the fact that the historical background is the era of great depression and the heroine, though a Lady, does not have enough food to eat. As for the murder, having been “trained” by reading A.C.’s complete oeuvres more than once, the person of the murderer was not a big surprise for me and the clues were easy to recognize; nonetheless, I enjoyed this whodunnit, even if it can’t hold a candle to the above-mentioned books by A.C. (hence my rating: 4 stars). All in all, this book, which is the first part of a series, made me keen on reading the next books and finding out more about Lady Georgiana Rannoch’s fate.

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