Crowned and Dangerous (Royal Spyness #10)

Most of you will have no idea what that headline was all about. Sorry about that: It is the answer to the question I asked in the headline to my review of \”Malice at the Palace\”: \”Is Darcy becoming another Daniel Sullivan?\”. Basically I was all ranting about how Darcy had started to show some very annoying old-fashioned tendencies (just like Sullivan) was being overprotective and mostly absent, and how the wole relationship between Darcy and Georgie was going nowhere and had become boring and superfluous … So, now I\’m happy to say that this novel basically was more than I could have hoped for! No really: all I had been ranting about has changed. Well, not completely maybe, but finally Georgie and Darcy are working well together, both as a couple AND as detectives, Queeny is less of a pain in the *** and we even get to know more about Darcy and his family. Brilliant! Thank you Mrs Bowen. In case you ever read this: You really really made my day!!

I love this series because it\’s different, charming, and funny. It\’s not the run of the mill mystery/love story. The story is really good and I love the characters.

Crowned and Dangerous is the tenth book in this cozy mystery series. Georgie is 35th in line to the throne in the late 1930s, put penniless. Darcy is the son of an Irish lord and just as penniless. The pair of them, while trying to survive, continue to solve mysteries and take care of problems for both the royal family and their friends. But they are getting a bit frustrated with propriety keeping them from getting married. So Darcy decides to whisk Georgie away to get married and worry about propriety later. As is normal in the series, a problem happens and they are prevented. Darcy’s father is accused of murder, so Darcy goes away to support his emotionally distant and unlikable father. And because the situation looks grim, attempts to break things off with Georgie so that her (and the royal family) will not be associated with the crime. Georgie flutters around a bit before going to him. Crowned and Dangerous corrects several of the problems that have been going on in the series for a while. Queenie, Georgie’s incompetent maid, is mostly out of the book and by the end seems to have mostly stopped being a punch line and allowed to be a real person. Georgie mostly stops worrying about Darcy’s past and whether he really loves her or not. There is not a lot of whining in the book. The actual mystery in Crowned and Dangerous and its discovery is pretty thin. I kept expecting there to be more. Solving the mystery is less about smarts and intuition than just following the leads and being hopeful in light of the early bad news. But the character development and the central relationship make some real progress. All in all, this is better than the past couple of books. It is more believable and has some good potential for future books. I breezed through it in less than two days. But after several heavy books, it was a nice chance.

Love love Katherine Kellgren! Her accents & voices were so good and love the sense of humor by the narrator, Lady Georgiana. Good mystery, funny, clean language ( such a novelty nowadays!). If you enjoy a good, but lightweight mystery every now and then, Rhys Bowen is clever author.

The last couple of books in this series seemed to have lagged a tiny bit, but this book more than brought it all back up to speed! As Lady Georgianna and Darcy O\’Mara are en route to Gretna Green to elope, he gets word that his father, Lord Kilhenny, has been arrested for murder. So he must rush to Ireland to be with him. Although he urges Georianna not to come–in fact, tries to break off their engagement so she won\’t be tainted by the gossip–she, of course, will find a way to be there. Naturally, they are tackling this new mystery together. Not only has Rhys Bowen crafted a fun story, she seems to have brought some of the original charm back to it, including several new characters–a couple of whom might wind up being in future books perhaps. (I sure hope so!) But most of the characters we have come to love–Queenie the maid, Fig, her wretched sister-in-law, and of course, her beloved grandfather all make appearances. But they are less featured than some new people–Darcy\’s father and a Polish princess. Plus Darcy\’s elderly aunt and uncle. They are wonderful characters and I hope to see all of them playing roles in future books. This book is a five star on every level. Although it is light reading in a way, that does not detract from the twists and turns of the plot. The characters are a hoot, and there were several places I laughed out loud. Love the series, and this is among the best so far! This series has decent mysteries, but the delightful characters and especially the stellar narration are the best reasons to listen!

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