Heirs and Graces, Rhys Bowen
This is the seventh book in Rhys Bowen's "Royal Spyness" series of mysteries, featuring Lady Georgiana Rannoch. Lady Georgie is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, 35th in line for the throne. The family estate has been crippled by her late father's gambling debts and death duties, and her allowance was cut off when she turned twenty-one. As a member of the Royal Family, however distant, she was not of course educated to earn a living, but she has resisted the family's attempts to marry her off to suitable foreign princes. She has also resisted the only other acceptable option, serving as a companion and lady-in-waiting to one of the elderly royal aunts. In the course of trying to support herself, Georgie has taken on several small assignments from her cousin, Queen Mary, which have brought her into danger and left her with mysteries to solve.
When the last book ended, Georgie was headed to London to stay with her mother, a glamorous actress who found life on the Rannoch estate in Scotland, not to mention marriage to the Duke, unendurable. After divorcing Georgie's father, she had a string of lovers and husbands, none of whom lasted long. As this book opens, in April of 1934, she is working on a memoir of her life on-stage and off, with Georgie as her secretary. However, when her latest lover, a German industrialist, writes to announce that he has bought her a villa in Switzerland, she immediately abandons book and daughter. Georgie has nowhere to go and no money. In desperation, she writes a note to Queen Mary, asking for any assistance or introductions that her Majesty could give.
In return, Georgie receives an invitation to tea at Buckingham Palace. There the Queen introduces her to the Dowager Duchess of Eynsford [and my brain immediately started singing, "I can see her now, Mrs. Freddie Einsford-Hill, in a wretched little flat above a store...."]. The Duchess has a problem: her older son, the current Duke, refuses flat out to marry and provide an her, and her younger son John was killed in the Great War. If the Duke dies without a heir, the estate reverts to the Crown. However, the family has recently learned that John married in Australia just before the war and fathered a child, whom he never met. This son, Jack, is now on his way to England. The Queen and the Dowager Duchess want Georgie to stay at the family's estate in Kent, to welcome the newly-discovered heir and to help him adjust to life in England and to his new position. Georgie, with no other options and thinking of spring-time in the country, is happy to accept.
When she arrives with the Duchess at Kingsdowne Place, she finds a tense atmosphere and a divided family. In addition to the Duke, the dowager's two dotty sisters are in residence, both widowed and with little money. The Duke's sister Irene is also staying with her three children, the eldest of whom suffered a riding accident that has left her in a wheelchair. Irene would like to take her to Switzerland for treatment, but since her husband, the Russian Count Streletzki, abandoned the family, she is dependent on her brother's charity, and he refuses to pay for it. Cedric, the duke, is spending his money instead on becoming a patron of the arts, supporting playwrights, dancers and composers, whom he invites to stay. When Georgie sees these handsome, willowy young men, she understands why the Duke refuses to make a dynastic marriage. He is planning to build an amphitheatre on the estate grounds, though that will mean tearing down some elderly tenants' cottages. Both Cedric and Irene are angry at the news of their Australian nephew, and both openly doubt that he is the true heir. Irene thinks that the title and estate should go to her son Nicholas rather than some colonial outsider.
When Jack arrives, he confirms all the family's worst fears. He is straight off a sheep station, and in fact he would prefer to be back there. Georgie has her hands full trying to smooth some of his rough edges and explain the ways of his noble family to him. But Cedric refuses to accept Jack, and one evening he stuns his family with the announcement that he plans to adopt his handsome young French valet and make him the heir. The next morning, the Duke's body is discovered on the grounds, with Jack's distinctive knife stuck in his back, and Georgie finds herself in the middle of another murder investigation.
This is an interesting country-house murder mystery combined with a Downton-esque family saga. Initially I thought we might be in for a version of Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax, with a unwelcome heir who plays with his family's low expectations. But Jack is the epitome of a brash young Colonial, complete with a stock of colorfully inappropriate phrases (Ms. Bowen herself lived in Australia for several years). I particularly enjoyed the two dotty aunts, one of whom organizes séances where the Ouija board gives Georgie the clue to the duke's murder.
I had one quibble, with regard to titles and address. When Jack arrives, the Dowager insists on presenting him as the Viscount Farningham. Since he is the nephew of the current Duke, not his son, and is only the heir presumptive, he does not take the heir's courtesy title. The Dowager would have known that, unless she is pressing a point to have him accepted. Georgie also addresses the Dowager and the Duke constantly as "Your Grace." As their social equal, if not outranking them as a minor Royal, she would address them as Duke and Duchess (as Dorothy Sayers and Angela Thirkell's characters do in books set in the same period). Georgie would know that only social inferiors and servants use "Your Grace."
I had a bigger problem with the solution to the murder, though (spoilers follow, so I'll leave a bit of space).
I don't like mysteries where children commit murder. Here it is accidental, but the children seem to show no remorse, no awareness that their actions killed their uncle. They take what happened very lightly, and in fact they are almost rewarded, by being sent off to boarding school as they have long wished. It's not that I want them sent to prison, or severely punished, but seeing them scampering off to play in the end left a bad taste in my mouth. Even in a cozy or light-hearted mystery like this, no matter how unpleasant the victim, Justice is due to the dead.
This completes the Peril the First I undertook for the RIP VIII Challenge.
Showing posts with label Rhys Bowen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rhys Bowen. Show all posts
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Saturday, December 22, 2012
A Christmas mystery in Devon
The Twelve Clues of Christmas, Rhys Bowen
I was lucky enough to hear Rhys Bowen speak at Houston's Murder by the Book soon after this book was published in early November, and to get my copy signed, but I saved it to read closer to Christmas. This year my holiday-themed reading has been mysteries and mayhem, and The Twelve Clues of Christmas fit right in perfectly.
This is the sixth book in the "Royal Spyness" series, set in the early 1930s. The main character is Lady Georgiana Rannoch, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria who is 35th in line for the throne (a newly-born niece just bumped her down from 34th). Her father the Duke of Rannoch left the family saddled with gambling debts and death duties, and Georgie has no income of her own. Despite increasing pressure from her sister-in-law to marry, to get her off the family's hands, she has so far avoided the frequent fate of minor royals: marriage to an equally minor European prince, or service as lady in waiting to one of her elderly royal aunts. Instead, Georgie has attempted to make an independent life for herself in London. But she has discovered that her royal status, however minor, combined with her lack of qualifications, make finding work all but impossible. Her attempts have come to the attention of Buckingham Palace, though, and her cousin Queen Mary has asked her to take on some small commissions, some of which have involved her in murder cases. Yet in the end, Georgie usually has to return to the family home in Scotland and the complaints of her sister-in-law Fig.
As this book opens, she is contemplating the horrors of Christmas spent not just with Fig but also with Fig's even more unpleasant family. Then she sees an advertisement in The Lady: "Young woman of impeccable background to assist hostess with the social duties of large Christmas house party." Five days later, she is on her way to Devon, to Gorzley Hall in Tiddleton-under-Lovey. She arrives to find there has been an incident, a neighbor shot and killed in the Hall's orchard. The police believe it was an accident, though they can't explain why the man was up in a tree at the time. But then there is another death the next day, an elderly woman, living quietly with her two sisters. Georgie also learns that the house party is not exactly what is seems. As other deaths follow, the police dismiss them as accidents too, but she believes there must be a connection, and she draws on her previous detective work to investigate. At the same time, she joins her employer/hostess Lady Hawse-Gorzley in entertaining the house party with Christmas activities and games, in between sumptuous meals. Despite her growing sense of danger, Georgie can't help enjoying herself, far from the austerities of Castle Rannoch. To her delight, the guests include the Hon. Darcy O'Mara, the son of an equally impoverished Irish peer, who has shared several of her adventures and with whom she has fallen unsuitably in love.
I really enjoyed this book. Georgie is a great character and a very sympathetic one, and you can't help hoping that she will find her way to independence and happiness with Darcy (let alone escape from the awful Fig). The setting is such fun, combining a classic country-house murder in a small village with all the traditional holiday activities (there is an appendix that provides more information and even recipes). I spent a much less eventful Christmas in Devon myself many years ago, when my father had a teaching exchange at the University of Exeter. The story is also very clever, with quite an exciting denouement. As usual I missed out completely on the clues, including the title itself, but as usual I was having too much fun to mind. I look forward to seeing where Georgie's next adventure takes her - back to London, for a start.
I was lucky enough to hear Rhys Bowen speak at Houston's Murder by the Book soon after this book was published in early November, and to get my copy signed, but I saved it to read closer to Christmas. This year my holiday-themed reading has been mysteries and mayhem, and The Twelve Clues of Christmas fit right in perfectly.
This is the sixth book in the "Royal Spyness" series, set in the early 1930s. The main character is Lady Georgiana Rannoch, a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria who is 35th in line for the throne (a newly-born niece just bumped her down from 34th). Her father the Duke of Rannoch left the family saddled with gambling debts and death duties, and Georgie has no income of her own. Despite increasing pressure from her sister-in-law to marry, to get her off the family's hands, she has so far avoided the frequent fate of minor royals: marriage to an equally minor European prince, or service as lady in waiting to one of her elderly royal aunts. Instead, Georgie has attempted to make an independent life for herself in London. But she has discovered that her royal status, however minor, combined with her lack of qualifications, make finding work all but impossible. Her attempts have come to the attention of Buckingham Palace, though, and her cousin Queen Mary has asked her to take on some small commissions, some of which have involved her in murder cases. Yet in the end, Georgie usually has to return to the family home in Scotland and the complaints of her sister-in-law Fig.
As this book opens, she is contemplating the horrors of Christmas spent not just with Fig but also with Fig's even more unpleasant family. Then she sees an advertisement in The Lady: "Young woman of impeccable background to assist hostess with the social duties of large Christmas house party." Five days later, she is on her way to Devon, to Gorzley Hall in Tiddleton-under-Lovey. She arrives to find there has been an incident, a neighbor shot and killed in the Hall's orchard. The police believe it was an accident, though they can't explain why the man was up in a tree at the time. But then there is another death the next day, an elderly woman, living quietly with her two sisters. Georgie also learns that the house party is not exactly what is seems. As other deaths follow, the police dismiss them as accidents too, but she believes there must be a connection, and she draws on her previous detective work to investigate. At the same time, she joins her employer/hostess Lady Hawse-Gorzley in entertaining the house party with Christmas activities and games, in between sumptuous meals. Despite her growing sense of danger, Georgie can't help enjoying herself, far from the austerities of Castle Rannoch. To her delight, the guests include the Hon. Darcy O'Mara, the son of an equally impoverished Irish peer, who has shared several of her adventures and with whom she has fallen unsuitably in love.
I really enjoyed this book. Georgie is a great character and a very sympathetic one, and you can't help hoping that she will find her way to independence and happiness with Darcy (let alone escape from the awful Fig). The setting is such fun, combining a classic country-house murder in a small village with all the traditional holiday activities (there is an appendix that provides more information and even recipes). I spent a much less eventful Christmas in Devon myself many years ago, when my father had a teaching exchange at the University of Exeter. The story is also very clever, with quite an exciting denouement. As usual I missed out completely on the clues, including the title itself, but as usual I was having too much fun to mind. I look forward to seeing where Georgie's next adventure takes her - back to London, for a start.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Murder on the Riviera
Naughty in Nice, Rhys Bowen
This is the fifth book in Rhys Bowen's series of mysteries set in the early 1930s and featuring Lady Georgiana Rannoch. Lady Georgie is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34th in line to the throne. Her father, the late Duke of Rannoch, blew the family fortunes in gambling losses, and her brother Binky inherited little besides crushing death duties and the family castle in Scotland. Georgie has so far resisted the usual fate of minor royals, either marriage to an equally minor foreign prince, or service as lady in waiting to one of her agèd royal aunts. But she hasn't found it easy to support herself, restricted as she is by her royal status, however far she actually stands from the throne. She has, however, been drawn into several murder cases, and she has also taken on commissions for her cousin, Queen Mary.
It is the Queen this time who sends Georgie to the Riviera. A valuable snuffbox, with a portrait of Marie Antoinette framed in diamonds inside the lid, has been stolen from Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty suspects a wealthy industrialist, Sir Toby Groper, well-known for his obsessive collecting. The Queen wants Georgie to retrieve the snuffbox from his villa in Nice. Not steal - "Retrieve it, Georgiana. Sir Toby is the one who has stolen it." Georgie also agrees to keep an eye on her cousin David, the Prince of Wales, who is in Nice as well, with Wallis Simpson.
Even before Georgie arrives in Nice, complications ensue. There is a second theft, of a much more serious nature, and then a murder, for which Georgie becomes the main suspect. The officer in charge of the investigations, Inspector Lafite, would fit right into one of the Pink Panther films. A large and diverse cast of characters keeps the story moving. It includes Georgie's brother Binky and his unpleasant wife Fig, who is pregnant; the birth of her child will move Georgie one step further from the throne. Fig is a combination of the worst of Helen, Duchess of Denver, and Eugenia Wraxton, and I keep waiting for her to get her comeuppance.
I have enjoyed each book in this series. Though the difficulties of life in the early 1930s are clear, even for the upper class, the stories are fun and funny, and the settings are well done. Georgie is a very appealing character, determined to make her own way, and I'm already looking forward to her next adventure.
This is the fifth book in Rhys Bowen's series of mysteries set in the early 1930s and featuring Lady Georgiana Rannoch. Lady Georgie is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34th in line to the throne. Her father, the late Duke of Rannoch, blew the family fortunes in gambling losses, and her brother Binky inherited little besides crushing death duties and the family castle in Scotland. Georgie has so far resisted the usual fate of minor royals, either marriage to an equally minor foreign prince, or service as lady in waiting to one of her agèd royal aunts. But she hasn't found it easy to support herself, restricted as she is by her royal status, however far she actually stands from the throne. She has, however, been drawn into several murder cases, and she has also taken on commissions for her cousin, Queen Mary.
It is the Queen this time who sends Georgie to the Riviera. A valuable snuffbox, with a portrait of Marie Antoinette framed in diamonds inside the lid, has been stolen from Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty suspects a wealthy industrialist, Sir Toby Groper, well-known for his obsessive collecting. The Queen wants Georgie to retrieve the snuffbox from his villa in Nice. Not steal - "Retrieve it, Georgiana. Sir Toby is the one who has stolen it." Georgie also agrees to keep an eye on her cousin David, the Prince of Wales, who is in Nice as well, with Wallis Simpson.
Even before Georgie arrives in Nice, complications ensue. There is a second theft, of a much more serious nature, and then a murder, for which Georgie becomes the main suspect. The officer in charge of the investigations, Inspector Lafite, would fit right into one of the Pink Panther films. A large and diverse cast of characters keeps the story moving. It includes Georgie's brother Binky and his unpleasant wife Fig, who is pregnant; the birth of her child will move Georgie one step further from the throne. Fig is a combination of the worst of Helen, Duchess of Denver, and Eugenia Wraxton, and I keep waiting for her to get her comeuppance.
I have enjoyed each book in this series. Though the difficulties of life in the early 1930s are clear, even for the upper class, the stories are fun and funny, and the settings are well done. Georgie is a very appealing character, determined to make her own way, and I'm already looking forward to her next adventure.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Mysterious immigrants
Raisins and Almonds, Kerry Greenwood
Murphy's Law, Rhys Bowen
This weekend I read two mysteries centering on immigrants. In Raisins and Almonds, it's Jewish immigrants to Australia in 1928. In Murphy's Law, it's all the mix of immigrants coming into New York City in 1901, with a focus on the Irish.
The Murder by the Book folks have been recommending Kerry Greenwood's Phyrne Fisher series since Cocaine Blues came out in the US. I tried a couple but didn't click with the series. Then I found the Corinna Chapman series, though a Houston Public Library recommendation - and I was hooked in the first few pages. So eventually, having run out of Corinna books, I thought I'd try Phyrne again - starting with the most recently published, Dead Man's Chest. From there, I went back to the start of the series, and now I'm reading them sort of in order. Raisins and Almonds is about the murder of a young Jewish man, recently arrived in Australia, which stirs up the Jewish community with fear it may lead to persecutions. It's a mix of immigration concerns, Jewish history, Zionism, kabala, and alchemy - that last three of which I had a hard time following. I did enjoy the usual cast of characters, minus Lin Chung but with the addition of Molly the puppy. And I envied Miss Sylvia Lee her idyllic life in her used bookstore. I think of Australia as a country of immigrants, like the US - and like the US, not everyone came voluntarily. And the struggle between generations of immigrants, from different parts of the world, may also look like our America history. I have Bill Bryson's book on Australia; maybe I'll move it up the TBR pile. One small quibble with this series: Phyrne's father's title keeps changing. In this book, he is a duke - which would make her Lady, not the Hon. Phyrne.
I also found Rhys Bowen through the library - in this case, the Harris County Public Libraries (which are wonderful). I started with the Lady Georgie series, set in the 1930s. A friend gave me some of the Evan Evans books (now sadly out of prints), which I liked. But while I tried one of the Molly Murphy books, like Phyrne, we didn't immediately click. The last time I was at a signing with Rhys Bowen, though, the MBTB staff were so enthusiastic that I bought the first Molly book - which sat on the TBR pile for five months. I picked it up Saturday & read it straight through. The main character, Molly, flees Ireland after fighting off the landlord's son and leaving him on the kitchen floor. She ends up escorting two children to America, posing as their mother. When a fellow immigrant, also Irish, is murdered on Ellis Island, Molly becomes one of the suspects and becomes involved in the investigation - which is the last thing that a handsome Irish police captain wants. The New York City setting is really well done, capturing the diversity of the population and the conflicts with and among immigrants. My only quibble with Molly is that she is awfully familiar with terms like "fingerprints" and "alibi" that probably didn't come up a lot in a small village in Ireland in 1901 - though Molly has apparently read Sherlock Holmes. I look forward to more of Molly's adventures.
America is a county of immigrants; everyone came here from somewhere else. One of my grandmothers came through Ellis Island in the 1920s. My dad's family moved back & forth to Canada in the early 1900s. Immigrants built this country, and today they make up a huge if shadowy part of our economy. I live in Houston, an immigration hub, 50 miles from Galveston, a 19th century immigration port to rival Ellis Island. We need a just immigration policy in this country, and we need to know our own history.
Murphy's Law, Rhys Bowen
This weekend I read two mysteries centering on immigrants. In Raisins and Almonds, it's Jewish immigrants to Australia in 1928. In Murphy's Law, it's all the mix of immigrants coming into New York City in 1901, with a focus on the Irish.
The Murder by the Book folks have been recommending Kerry Greenwood's Phyrne Fisher series since Cocaine Blues came out in the US. I tried a couple but didn't click with the series. Then I found the Corinna Chapman series, though a Houston Public Library recommendation - and I was hooked in the first few pages. So eventually, having run out of Corinna books, I thought I'd try Phyrne again - starting with the most recently published, Dead Man's Chest. From there, I went back to the start of the series, and now I'm reading them sort of in order. Raisins and Almonds is about the murder of a young Jewish man, recently arrived in Australia, which stirs up the Jewish community with fear it may lead to persecutions. It's a mix of immigration concerns, Jewish history, Zionism, kabala, and alchemy - that last three of which I had a hard time following. I did enjoy the usual cast of characters, minus Lin Chung but with the addition of Molly the puppy. And I envied Miss Sylvia Lee her idyllic life in her used bookstore. I think of Australia as a country of immigrants, like the US - and like the US, not everyone came voluntarily. And the struggle between generations of immigrants, from different parts of the world, may also look like our America history. I have Bill Bryson's book on Australia; maybe I'll move it up the TBR pile. One small quibble with this series: Phyrne's father's title keeps changing. In this book, he is a duke - which would make her Lady, not the Hon. Phyrne.
I also found Rhys Bowen through the library - in this case, the Harris County Public Libraries (which are wonderful). I started with the Lady Georgie series, set in the 1930s. A friend gave me some of the Evan Evans books (now sadly out of prints), which I liked. But while I tried one of the Molly Murphy books, like Phyrne, we didn't immediately click. The last time I was at a signing with Rhys Bowen, though, the MBTB staff were so enthusiastic that I bought the first Molly book - which sat on the TBR pile for five months. I picked it up Saturday & read it straight through. The main character, Molly, flees Ireland after fighting off the landlord's son and leaving him on the kitchen floor. She ends up escorting two children to America, posing as their mother. When a fellow immigrant, also Irish, is murdered on Ellis Island, Molly becomes one of the suspects and becomes involved in the investigation - which is the last thing that a handsome Irish police captain wants. The New York City setting is really well done, capturing the diversity of the population and the conflicts with and among immigrants. My only quibble with Molly is that she is awfully familiar with terms like "fingerprints" and "alibi" that probably didn't come up a lot in a small village in Ireland in 1901 - though Molly has apparently read Sherlock Holmes. I look forward to more of Molly's adventures.
America is a county of immigrants; everyone came here from somewhere else. One of my grandmothers came through Ellis Island in the 1920s. My dad's family moved back & forth to Canada in the early 1900s. Immigrants built this country, and today they make up a huge if shadowy part of our economy. I live in Houston, an immigration hub, 50 miles from Galveston, a 19th century immigration port to rival Ellis Island. We need a just immigration policy in this country, and we need to know our own history.
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