Review: Her Royal Spyness

A down-at-the-heels minor royal, Lady Georgina refuses to be married off to a boring European prince. She desperately wants to escape the confines of her deadly dull sister-in-law's house. To try and gain a modicum of freedom Georgie runs off to the family's London home, finds a body in the bathtub, and sees her brother accused of the crime. To earn money and clear her brother's name Georgie engages in all sorts of schemes and adopts numerous disguises, including operating her own maid service.

This book offers a humorous look at the 'plight' of the minor royal. All of them are absolutely incompetent without servants. Georgie and her brother Binky can't run a bath, make a cup of tea, start a fire, or get coal out of the cellar. Royal protocol requires Lady Georgina to refuse private employment, but her family can't keep up their houses and servants on their too-small resources.

As this is the first in the series quite a bit of time is spent establishing the characters. This seems to frequently be the case with mystery series, and I often prefer subsequent volumes. I suspect that might be true with this series too.

Rhys Bowen, Her Royal Spyness (Berkley, 2007) ISBN: 0425215679