A Death in Diamonds by S. J. Bennett

A Death in Diamonds by S. J. Bennett

I've read this series from the beginning and thoroughly enjoy seeing Queen Elizabeth II as an amateur sleuth. She knows people well and has access to a lot of information but needs her assistant private secretary to do most of the legwork. This time around we've gone back in time to the late 50s. It's early in the Queen's reign and she has two young children. She and Prince Phillip have been married about 10 years and their marriage has more stressors than most, one being that a club Prince Phillip attends has been connected to a murder. Joan, the assistant private secretary, is bold, resourceful, and intelligent. She is the only one the Queen can truly trust, since in addition to the murder case, they are trying to figure out which of the Queen's advisors has been attempting to sabotage her trips abroad. The peeks into royal life are fun. The queen visits a few other countries in this one and...
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Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

I should have loved Magpie Murders. It's definitely a book for mystery readers. Not only does it have two well-plotted mysteries, it has some great quotes about the nature of mysteries and reading. “You must know that feeling when it's raining outside and the heating's on and you lose yourself, utterly, in a book. You read and you read and you feel the pages slipping through your fingers until suddenly there are fewer in your right hand than there are in your left and you want to slow down but you still hurtle on towards a conclusion you can hardly bear to discover.” “As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat a good whodunnit: the twists & turns, the clues and the red herrings and then, finally, the satisfaction of having everything explained to you in a way that makes you kick yourself because you hadn't seen it from the start.” The set up is great, a novel within a novel, both murder...
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