Nice is nice if you're not a murder suspect.

Lady Georgiana Rannoch is about to be banished from her London home to the family castle in Scotland when Her Majesty the Queen saves her by paying her fare to France in the hopes that Georgie, an experienced sleuth (Royal Blood, 2010, etc.), can retrieve a valuable snuffbox the Queen suspects has been stolen by the nouveau riche Sir Toby Groper. Georgie's brother and his tiresome wife Fig are staying with her relatives, who relegate Georgie to a camp bed in the library. Luckily for Georgie, she's already met a distant relative and Coco Chanel on the Blue Train. The good news is that Chanel wants Georgie to model for her. The better news is that the ladies are staying with Georgie's much-married mother, who's left her boring German lover behind for some quality time in her Nice villa. Now for the bad news. When Georgie falls off a catwalk, she loses the valuable necklace lent by the Queen and now has two priceless items to recover. Ensconced in her mother's villa, which overlooks Groper's home, Georgie spots his body in his swimming pool and is promptly arrested by the French police. Luckily, her latest beau, the Marquis de Ronchard, provides a lawyer and bail so that Georgie can continue her hunt for the killer.

Georgie's latest adventure is charming and lighthearted as ever, though the 1930s setting carries ominous hints of the future.

 

 

Don't miss a trip to the French Riviera when Lady Georgiana (Royal Blood) is sent by the Queen on a new secret mission. Add a dash of Coco Chanel and a murder or two—how can you pass up the fifth treat in this delectable series?

Fans of Peter Lovesey's hilarious books transforming the future Edward VII into an unlikely sleuth will relish Bowen's whimsical fifth Royal Spyness mystery starring Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the British throne (after 2010's Royal Blood). In 1933, the destitute Rannoch, who's been helping out at a London soup kitchen, welcomes the chance to escape to the French Riviera after the queen offers to finance her trip there to recover a snuff box stolen by an odious bounder, the aptly named Sir Toby Groper. On a French train, the self-effacing Rannoch meets legendary designer Coco Chanel, who, to her astonishment, asks her to model a new line of clothing. In between this opportunity and her looking into suspicious doings by her love interest, Darcy O'Mara, Rannoch finds herself smack in the middle of a murder inquiry. Bowen successfully melds a whodunit with comedy as few contemporary writers can. (Sept.)