Summary: Georgiana and her mother travel to the US and encounter theft and murder.
Queen of Hearts came out just over a years ago. Many of the initial reviews were negative (although the average has come up since it first came out.) I went ahead and picked it up since the next book in the series has also come out.
This cozy mystery series has stalled a bit and this book while not horrible, did not move the broader story along at all.
Georgiana’s mother decided to try to go to the US to get a quickie divorce so that she can marry her current man. Georgiana tags along. On the ocean liner there is a theft and maybe a murder. But a Hollywood director asks Georgiana’s mother to be in a movie (she is a well known stage actress) and so they head off to Hollywood.
As is normal, Georgiana’s secret fiancée Darcy happens to show up on the trip in pursuit of a jewel thief. Georgiana takes primary lead in solving the eventual murder (Darcy is not around for most of the main action). In several earlier books I was really irritated by Georgiana’s reticence. But she was much more forceful and present in this book. So that is a move in the right direction.
On the whole this book is fluff and it is not a big deal to the series if you happen to skip it.
One random point, the final solution to the Inspector Mairgret book that I read immediately before this one was the key to this book as well. Normally I am not all that interested in trying to solve the mystery early, but since I had just read the basic solution in a book a few days earlier, it was pretty obvious.
Queen of Hearts (A Royal Spyness Mystery #8 by Rhys Bowen Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
