I am a Rhys Bowen fan. I love her books and I think she’s one of the nicest writers I’ve ever met. Her “Evan” series sings with the music of Wales. Her Molly Murphy books bring the early 1900s of New York City to life. Her Royal Spyness novels are frothy mysteries of British Royalty from the viewpoint of Lady Georgiana Rannoch, the thirty-fifth in line to the throne in the 1930s.
Rhys Bowen is a master of mystery and she’s at it again! The recent Agatha winner (for Queen of Hearts in the Her Royal Spyness series) returns to her Molly Murphy series with a psychological thriller, The Edge of Dreams…or is it a thriller about psychology?
Lady Georgiana Rannoch is at it again, and this time it’s in America!
The penniless 35th in line to the British crown is sleuthing, lusting (but unconsummated with her beloved Darcy), and hobnobbing with the rich and famous in Rhys Bowen’s latest Royal Spyness mystery, Queen of Hearts.
My wife and I are big fans of the mystery writings of Janet Quin-Harkin, known to her readers by the pen name of Rhys Bowen. From the Wales of Constable Evans, to the globe-hopping of the penniless Lady Georgie in the 1930’s, to the early 1900’s with Molly Murphy, we have followed every character, every word, fearing that the next book will sink into formula or lose that indefinable sparkle. City of Darkness and Light is the thirteenth Molly Murphy mystery. We’ll have to keep waiting for Bowen to falter, because this one is a corker!
KRL reviewed a lot of really good and great books in 2013, but we decided to give our best shot at choosing our top 5 of the year--some of us cheated a little, but here are our choices! And if you are an author who is not on the list, take heart--like I said, they were all good books!
I’m a little envious of a couple of my friends who will be in London this Christmas season. I have been there during early spring and again in summer, but have always dreamed of having a British Christmas on the Isle itself. I consider making a plum pudding every year in December, but just don’t want to face boiling anything in cheesecloth. I’d love to have roast Christmas goose, Christmas punch, and play the Minister’s Cat with a witty group of Brits, but my dream has not materialized thus far.
Heirs and Graces is the seventh adventure with Lady Georgiana Rannoch, and as it begins both Georgina and the reader are sorely put upon. Georgiana’s insouciant, self-absorbed mother has decided that she should write her memoirs and that Georgiana is just the one to take dictation and transcribe the scandalous and duchy-toppling adventures as the former Duchess of Rannoch and Glengarry. How Georgina eludes this thankless task (and avoids becoming homeless as a result) requires the intervention of Queen Mary, Elizabeth II’s grandmother, in case you aren’t familiar with the series’ time frame.
It is 1904. In a handful of years, Molly Murphy has escaped Ireland after fighting off a lecherous landowner, been a murder suspect on Ellis Island, become a private investigator, met bohemian artists and playwrights (and magician Harry Houdini and anarchist Emma Goldman), and married an Irish-American police detective, Daniel Sullivan…and now she’s in The Family Way, Rhys Bowen’s 12th in the Molly Murphy series. It definitely meets the high standards of other installments of the series.
Finally! Molly Murphy and Capt. Daniel Sullivan get married and are on their honeymoon, only to be interrupted on the second day when Dan is recalled to duty to investigate a tunnel which collapsed during the building of the new subway. To make up for the break, Alderman Brian Hannan, (also the owner of the construction company building the underground) offers Dan use of a guest cottage on his Newport estate, at the same time telling him he wants to discuss something, adding “he may have got it wrong.” Of course, “it” is not reveal
The Twelve Clues of Christmas is a rollicking romp through the holidays as Lady Georgianna Rannoch (Georgie), thirty-fifth in line to the British Crown, tries to escape a dreary Scottish winter with her brother’s in-laws by working as a hostess at an estate in Devonshire…where her mother is working on a play with Noel Coward…and her ex-copper grandfather is helping out…and the passionate Darcy O’Mara is taking a break from his possibly-espionage-related activities to visit his aunt: Georgie’s employer.
