A dreadfully posh mystery

kw: book reviews, mysteries, aristocrats

Strangely enough, this book was next to a "Sneaky Pie Brown" mystery that I reached for rather absent-mindedly, but I didn't notice I'd mis-aimed until I got to checkout. I decided to consider it an adventure and see what was in store.

On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service by Rhys Bowen shares only its take-off title with any Ian Fleming novel. The mandatory secret agent character is decidedly secondary to Lady Georgina Bannoch, who has all the adventures, solves mysteries, and generally just avoids becoming another victim. Other titles by the author typically take off from sundry titles and tropes (e.g., Her Royal Spyness, The Twelve Clues of Christmas).

Lady Georgie is a poor relation to the royal family, cousin to Queen Mary (mother of Elizabeth). Thus, although she has hardly any family money to go on, she gets pulled into aristocratic intrigues. In this volume, in the spring of 1935 she goes to Italy to care for an ailing friend, but also spends a few days at a house party in a large villa, one attended by the crown prince (her cousin David, who abdicated as Edward VIII) and his intended, Wallis Simpson, and a number of Italian and German grandees. She has a special reason for being at the house party, sent by the Queen to spy on the prince and Mrs. Simpson. Pre-WWII intrigue forms the backdrop.

Initially I found the aristocratic milieu rather tiring, but warmed to it in time. It is a fun sort of lingo to imitate, as fans of Jane Austen well know. I was also a bit taken aback by the characterization of the prince and his intended. If Mrs. Simpson was the spoiled harridan portrayed in the book, one wonders what the prince could possibly have seen in her, though he is portrayed as utterly devoted to her, albeit anxiously. I don't have sufficient knowledge to judge how accurate this may be.

The plot is a classically structured closed-door mystery, solved at the last moment and pretty much by accident by Lady Georgie. A bit of idle fun to read, a break from my usual diet of nonfiction.

"Rhys" is the Welsh version of "Reese" (as in Witherspoon); Ms Bowen is of the British Isles and knowledgeable enough about aristocratic habits of nearly a century ago to pull this off.