Rhys Bowen_36

'The Last Mrs Summers' is the 14th book in the the 'Royal Spyness' series by Rhys Bowen (AKA Janet Quin-Harkin). When you're 14 books in, it's like a old family friend comes visiting and you settle in for a long chat. We met Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie Rannoch in 1932 when she was 20ish, 34th in line to the throne currently held by Queen Mary and flat broke. "I am constantly being reminded that it is my duty to make a good match with some half-lunatic buck-toothed, chinless, spineless and utterly awful European royal, thus cementing ties with a potential enemy", says Georgie, and flees the ancestral castle in Scotland. Too aristocratic to work, she's ill-equipped for independence (she knows where to seat a Archbishop at dinner but can't boil an egg), accident-prone, plucky and kind—the perfect protagonist for a comic historical cosie. Then a Frenchman is found dead in a duke's bathtub and away we go. But I can't be glib about Georgie because I've spent so much happy time with her since 'Her Royal Spyness' was published in 2007. Bring on number 15; 'God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen' will be released in October 2021.