{"id":5205,"date":"2023-09-17T07:24:46","date_gmt":"2023-09-17T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5205"},"modified":"2023-09-17T07:24:46","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T14:24:46","slug":"sj-bennett-murder-most-royal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/sj-bennett-murder-most-royal\/","title":{"rendered":"SJ Bennett: Murder Most Royal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I love this series.\u00a0 When I tell people about it, that the books have Queen Elizabeth II as the detective, there are many skeptical raised eyebrows.\u00a0 The wonder of the books: the plots are wonderful; there\u2019s diversity in the characters \u2013 the Queen\u2019s foil is her aide, Rozie, a London born Nigerian \u2013 and the respect for the Queen, by all accounts a practical and dutiful woman, shines on every page in the nicest possible way.\u00a0 The books allow you to imagine that it might<\/em> have gone this way if the Queen really was a secret detective, guiding the police and Scotland Yard to solutions she\u2019s already figured out, with Rozie\u2019s help.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a shining thread of feminism underneath all the stories, celebrating women\u2019s strength in the many forms that strength takes.<\/p>\n

The action in this third installment takes place in 2016, entirely at Sandringham, where the Queen and Prince Phillip spend the Christmas and New Year holidays.\u00a0 It\u2019s at the nexus of Trump\u2019s election and the reality of Brexit; and unfortunately, shortly before the Queen\u2019s arrival, a hand in a plastic bag is discovered washed up on the beach. When Rozie shows the Queen a photo, she recognizes the hand \u2013 she knows the signet ring and a missing fingertip.\u00a0 It\u2019s the hand of her sometime Sandringham neighbor, Ned St. Cyr.<\/p>\n

When some other events surround the hand \u2013 a drowning, and a hit and run \u2013 the Queen and Rozie put their heads together to try and figure out what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 Unlike the police (or the Chief Constable in this story, a very traditional village mystery) they are sure the events are connected.\u00a0 The Queen has a network of former female aides who have helped in her investigations \u2013 one of them lives near Sandringham and is a help to Rozie in understanding the local lay of the land.\u00a0 Of course, the Queen has that bit covered.<\/p>\n

Ned\u2019s family owns a nearby stately mansion, Ladybridge, and the chatelaines (the Ladybridge chatelaine is recently deceased) shared a love of gardening, back when the Queen\u2019s mother was in charge of the Sandringham gardens.\u00a0 The gardens play into the plot, but everything this author does is smart and well planned.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason for each detail she includes, so overlook no detail, readers!\u00a0 These books are nothing if not enjoyable reads, but the author also makes a demand that the reader keep up and pay attention.<\/p>\n

I love the friendship between the Queen and Rozie.\u00a0 I love that the Queen knows she can trust Rozie, and that Rozie\u2019s confidence is growing as the series goes forward.\u00a0 As the book begins, Rozie is slightly annoyed that she\u2019s not spending her holiday in the St. Bart\u2019s sunshine, but by the end of the book, she\u2019s as much in love with North Norfolk as the Queen.\u00a0 The tone of these reads is sweet but not saccharine; smart but fully engaging; and best of all (to me) a terrific back stage look at the workings of the royal family.\u00a0 Fictional or not, it feels authentic.\u00a0 These are books not to be missed. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #3 I love this series.\u00a0 When I tell people about it, that the books have Queen Elizabeth II as the detective, there are many skeptical raised eyebrows.\u00a0 The wonder of the books: the plots are wonderful; there\u2019s diversity in the characters \u2013 the Queen\u2019s foil is her aide, Rozie, a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1347,1346,514,1276,685,686,516,291],"class_list":["post-5205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-her-majesty-the-queen-investigates","tag-murder-most-royal","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","tag-robin-agnew","tag-royal-family","tag-sandringham","tag-sj-bennett","tag-william-morrow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5205"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5260,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions\/5260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}