I read the first book in the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series back in 2021. I remember enjoying it, but unlike my husband who has kept more up to date with the series, I have been slow to keep up. So, it’s 2024 and I am now finally getting around to book 2. I thought the title to this one was a nice touch, gently riffing on the world of Sherlock Holmes. The story itself is set in 2016.
Synopsis
‘Queen Elizabeth II is having a royal nightmare. A referendum divides the nation, a tumultuous election grips the United States – and the body of a staff member is found dead beside Buckingham Palace swimming pool. Is it a tragic accident, as the police think? Or is something more sinister going on? As Her Majesty looks for answers, her trusted assistant, Rozie, is on the trail of a treasured painting that once hung outside the Queen’s bedroom. But when Rozie receives a threatening anonymous letter, Elizabeth knows dark forces are at work – and far too close to home. After all, though the staff and public may not realise it, she is the keenest sleuth among them. Sometimes, it takes a Queen’s eye to see connections where no one else can . . .’
Overall Thoughts
The narrative takes place over several months and begins in October 2016, with an extended scene of the Queen’s private secretary going to the heated pool at Kensington Palace for a swim, only to discover a corpse upon arrival. The victim is not identified at this point, which is no doubt intended to generate intrigue, but I found this prologue to be too heavy on descriptive detail, making the journey to the dead body drawn out. I felt this first scene could have been snappier.
The plot then jumps back in time, to three months previously, and chapter one introduces the mystery of how the Ministry of Defence ended up with one of the Queen’s paintings when she had not loaned or gifted it to them. There is also the anxiety over whether Parliament will sign off on a palace repairs budget of £350 million. It was a bit hard to feel sympathy at this point. Although it would transpire that the Queen and I have had a shared experience, well the Queen as depicted in this novel, as later in the story she ends up with a bat in her bedroom at Balmoral. I too a few years ago had a similar experience, the realisation occurring at 4am, and whilst I did not have a league or household staff to resolve the issue, I did have my stepdad, a copy of the BBC History magazine and a shoe box (the bat was safely released back outside).
Nevertheless, the author does try to portray the Queen as a fully rounded person, rather than as an enigmatic public persona. This can be seen in the conversations she has with people such as her husband, Prince Philip, which additionally juxtapose an ordinary couple having a chat about their less than ordinary lives. For example, at the beginning of chapter one the Queen says to Prince Philip:
“You know that painting?”
“Which painting? You have seven thousand,” he said, just to be difficult.
The Queen sighed inwardly. She had been about to explain. “The one of Britannia. That used to hang outside my bedroom.”
“What. the ghastly little one by the Australian who couldn’t do boats? That one?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I saw it yesterday in Portsmouth, at Semaphore House. At an exhibition of maritime art.”
Philip stared pointedly at the editorial page of his paper and grunted, “That makes sense. For a yacht.”
This is probably one of or my favourite scene of the book.
The early sections of the novel also reveal difficulties within the royal staff, with one woman leaving because she is being pestered and stalked, and it goes onto transpire that poison pen letters have been sent to various people. However, I think a key issue for me with this story was that it is very slow, particularly the start and the plot has more to do with sharing a glimpse of palace/royal routine than a mystery puzzle. This prioritising of describing royal life and the royal household exacerbates the tendency for heavy description, so I think you need to love reading about royal life, to get the most out the reading experience. In some ways because the mystery plot is given less priority it does become rather bitty and new information to develop it and move it along is slow in arriving. Unsurprisingly progression in solving the cases is equally sedate, until the near the denouement when a lot of last-minute answers are found. The “bitty” feeling of this novel also perhaps comes about because there are several sleuthing characters, and I did wonder if it diluted the detection. Detective Inspector Strong is something of a cipher in this narrative. This is not a short book, and it felt like the mystery was spread thin, with a lot of repeated information, which affects pacing when the long solution scene is delivered. For me, the plot needed to be tighter to make the character moments shine more.
Rating: 3.5/5