Summary: Darcy has decided to take Georgie away so they can elope. But his father is accused of murder and yet again the two them must put aside their own desires out of duty.
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.
Crowned and Dangerous by Rhys Bowen (Her Royal Spyness #10) Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
- Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Rowen (#1)
- A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen (A Royal Spyness Mystery #2)
- Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen (A Royal Spyness Mystery #3)
- Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen (A Royal Spyness Mystery #4)
- Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen (Royal Spyness #5)
- Heirs and Graces by Rhys Bowen (Her Royal Spyness #6)
- The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen (Her Royal Spyness #7)
- Queen of Hearts (A Royal Spyness Mystery #8) by Rhys Bowen