Release Date: February 5, 2013
*NOTE: This review contains spoilers for the previous Underworld Detection Agency novels*
I just finished the first novel in the series and am eagerly reading the second. Set in the 1930s, this series follows Lady Georgiana, a minor royal and cousin to the King. Penniless and unmarried at 21, Georgie is trying to make her own way in London. This proves difficult as she has no skills and is easily recognized by her peers. It’s a delightfully witty book and full of rather funny passages. Witness our protagonist’s description of her royal lineage:
I suppose I should introduce myself before I venture any further. I am Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter of the Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch—known to my friends as Georgie. My grandmother was the least attractive of Queen Victoria’s daughters, who consequently never managed to snare a Romanov or a Kaiser, for which I am truly grateful and I expect she was too. Instead she was hitched to a dreary Scottish baron who was bribed with a dukedom for taking her off the old queen’s hands. In due time she dutifully produced my father, the second duke, before succumbing to the sort of diseases brought on by inbreeding and too much fresh air. I never knew her. I never met my fearsome Scottish grandfather either, although the servants claim that his ghost haunts Castle Rannoch, playing the bagpipes on the ramparts (which in itself is strange as he couldn’t play the bagpipes in life). By the time I was born at Castle Rannoch, the family seat even less comfortable than Balmoral, my father had become the second duke and was busy working his way through the family fortune.
My father in turn had done his duty and married the daughter of a frightfully correct English earl. She gave birth to my brother, looked around at her utterly bleak Highland surroundings, and promptly died.
The Nitty Gritty:
Celebrate the season with a little unconventional holiday music off Emm Gryner’s Winter EP.
Best Wishes for a safe and happy holiday,
Lisa