In Rhys Bowen’s latest Her Royal Spyness book, Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding, the action takes up less than two months after On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service (2017) ends in April 1935. That leaves 24-year-old Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie Rannoch, 34th in line to the British throne, less than three months to plan her wedding to Darcy O’Mara.
Introduced in Her Royal Spyness (2007), Georgie, then a 21-year-old royal of meager means, becomes something of an accidental detective after Queen Mary asks her to spy on her son, the Prince of Wales, and his intended, Wallis Simpson, only to find a body turn up unexpectedly in her bath. The only employee of Coronet Domestics Agency, Georgie is prone to clumsiness, but also forthright and resourceful. Her family includes a ne’er-do-well brother, a dismissive sister-in-law, an oft-married mother, and an extended “family” of schoolhood friends (all of whom—along with an Irish maid, Queenie—make appearances in subsequent novels).
Several royal missions, romance, and 11 books later, Georgie is finally ready to settle down and be wed. As might be expected in a Bowen novel, however, nothing goes smoothly. Unable to find a residence for her future life, Georgie is unexpectedly offered Eynsleigh, the Sussex country estate of her ex-stepfather and godfather, Sir Hubert Anstruther.
The manor is in disrepair and the newly hired staff—headed by an officious butler—seem inept at their duties. The cook serves tinned soup; a rude lady’s maid balks at serving her lady; and gardeners spend their time leaning on spades and pocketing profits from selling the estate’s produce to the local stores. What’s more, Georgie has inherited along with Eynsleigh its random residents (one a very Jane Eyre-like octogenerian who favors free-flying parrots and parakeets in her quarters).
The book starts out a bit uneven. Early on, Georgie seems out of character when she plays the royalty card and reprimands her staff, and the plot, not as involved as earlier novels, is thin. But as corpses and coincidences begin to pile up, Georgie returns to her stalwart style of detection and sorts out what is going on, and Bowen succeeds in providing a solid ending.
Though Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding is a less exciting entry in the always jaunty and mostly thrilling Royal Spyness series, it sets up much to look forward to in the next one. Will Darcy and Georgie live happily ever after? You’ll have to keep reading to find out. Until then, as Queenie would say, “Bob’s yer uncle.”