Book Review
Review of a series: Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
https://www.amazon.com/Her-Royal-Spyness-Book-ebook/dp/B0015DRP1I
There are currently fourteen books out there of this successful female sleuth series. After reading six of them, including number thirteen, Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, I feel justified in expressing my take.
After seeing the synopsis of the first one, I eagerly dug into Her Royal Spyness. How fun to choose as your main character a member of the British Royal family, and all indications were this would be a humorous and clever creation by this well known author.
Georgie, a destitute and minor member of the royal line, is easy to like. The background scenario was quite original, and Ms. Bowen is a good writer who can weave a good story with a pretty clever plot. But I almost didn't read another. Here is one more author, one more series, that thinks casual sexual encounters are a great source of humor. To me it was cheesy and distasteful. I'm a big girl, I know very well bed hopping wasn't an invention of the later twentieth century. Thankfully Georgie has some personal problems with it too, but she is quite understanding and tolerant of the lifestyle overall.
But when another book in the series went on sale I gave it another go. And liked it better. Over the next two years and five reads into Georgie's adventures - where she is often following the instructions of the Queen Mother regarding her son David's concerning alliance with that American divorce, Wallis Simpson - I liked the overall tone of the books and the plots well enough to overlook the lapses into the casual attitude taken by so many of the characters about fidelity and casual sexual liaisons, which are likely intended to make us smirk.
But Love and Death Among the Cheetahs has pretty well convinced me that if another Royal Spyness mystery entices me with a large markdown I'll give it a pass. A huge portion of the story centers around a party of upper crust British colonists in Kenya who amuse themselves by wild bed swapping parties. Georgie is suitably shocked, of course, and her own love is too devoted to her to be tempted to partake. There were so few people to like in this story it was hard to care who committed the murder, and to care at all that the victim got bumped off. Except for condemning murder - especially of a white man - there seemed to be no moral standard at all.
The murder mystery itself was interesting and the way all unanswered questions were resolved was just about worth hanging on to the end. Almost.
Judge for yourselves, but I don't like reading books that leave me feeling cheapened.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Among-Cheetahs-Spyness-Mystery-ebook/dp/B07KDWTT92
Thanks for the suggestion - I am in need of some light reading.
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Yup, this would be it! You will form your own opinion about the personal issues that kept me from enjoying this series as much as I do some others.
DeleteI read only one of an earlier Rhys Bowen series, and I disliked it so much I have never been interested in others, even the ones you liked. I can't remember what I didn't like, although I have a vague idea that I felt she had put a modern spin on the past. I always hate that. No age is perfect, and I think wise men and women ought to be aware of the good and ill of every age, including their own.
ReplyDeleteHard to do sometimes.
True enough. You put me in mind of why the later Hericule Poirot movies on PBS starring David Suchet were so disappointing. The first episodes, feature then movie length, were great fun, sticking to the culture and society codes as Agatha Christie described them in her stories. But the later ones had to put a modern slant and interpretation on things, which was really a turn off. Agatha would not have been pleased.
DeleteThe same with the Miss Marple ones. The series of the 1970's starring Joan Hickman made you feel like a true observer in St. Mary Mead. When they were redone with two different stars in later decades the same thing happened.