Royal Flush

By: Rhys Bowen

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren

Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

A Royal Spyness mystery starring Lady Georgiana, 34th in line for the throne - and the mystery world's favorite penniless heiress.

With its posh clientele in the country for the summer, Georgie's housecleaning business has fizzled. So she tries hiring herself out as a dinner and theatre companion. But her first client has quite the wrong idea.

To avoid further scandal, Georgie's shipped home to Castle Rannoch, where her summer plans include honoring a promise to Her Majesty to keep Castle Rannoch's divorced houseguest from seducing the Prince of Wales. She's also been coerced into helping Scotland Yard with a top-secret mission - namely keeping an eye on the shooting party at Balmoral and preventing someone from shooting the Prince. And Georgie must manage all this without strangling her odious sister-in-law Fig or spineless brother Binky.

©2009 Janet Quin-Harkin (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Katherine Kellgren is completely winning as guileless, gullible, plucky Georgie. With the castle overrun by visitors - including the notorious American Mrs. Wallis Simpson; her paramour, the Prince of Wales; and an assortment of gentry and staff - Kellgren shifts accents and attitudes with ease. Phryne Fisher fans will love Kellgren’s Lady Georgiana." ( AudioFile)

I'm Hooked!

Love the series, glad I stumbled on it and I think the narrator is just as marvelous as the writer!! Now I'm off to Book 4!

Fun

The Royal Spyness series is very fun from start to finish. The situations Georgie gets into are quite fun when you think of what a "Lady" is supposed to be like.

Didn’t enjoy this very much

The performance was first rate, but the constant upper class story line took away from the enjoyment of listening. I have never rated a Rhys Bowen story lower than five stars, but from my point of view it deserved far less than that.

Third book in a series about a minor British royal

The Royal Spyness series is a fun light hearted mystery series. In the first two books, Georgie, the 34th in line to the throne in 1930s England, has found herself an accidental detective. What makes the series work, is the mix of humor, a dash of romance good character development and some mystery to move the plot along. Georgie’s family is penniless after her father gambled away most of the money and lost the rest in the stock market. Georgie has decided that it is better to try to make her own way rather than live under the rules and obligations of her sister-in-law (and henpecked brother) back in Scotland.

Making her own way in depression era London is not easy. Georgie tried to start a business of opening homes for wealthy homeowners that are coming from their country estates to their London homes, but no one comes to London in the middle of the summer and she has to find another way to make money.

After her friend pawned off a date to her, she decides to try to advertise herself as a dinner partner for visiting businessmen. But her first client assumes she is a prostitute. Her love interest, Darcy O’Mara, happens to save her and Scotland Yard hears of her trouble and sends her out of town to save face. Except things are not as they seem. Someone is trying to kill members of the royal family and the special branch wants Georgie to work as an inside figure to help find out who it is.

This third book is just as enjoyable as the first two. The story line does enough to keep things interesting, although the ending was clear well before the end of the book. The love interest between Darcy and Georgie has enough to keep the tension without being frustrating, but that may not continue much past this book if there isn’t something that is done to shake things up.

The main issue that really will make or break this series is Georgie’s detective style. She is smart, but so far much of what she has found out has been more about where is happens to be and not what she figures out. There is a hint in this book about her really starting to do some detective work on her own. But this will have to be developed in the rest of the series or it will start falling flat. The humor and romance have made the series so far, but to keep going, it there needs to be a new note.

(originally posted on my blog, Bookwi.se)

Another Good Entry

This installment takes place outside London at Castle Rulloch in Scotland. The characters are well developed from the last installment. The final plot line is not given away until the very end so the listener is always thinking. Narration is good and paced well. It's great when the same narrator is used from installment to installment as you can easily identify with each character. If you like the first books, you will like this one.

A modern day Agatha Christie, almost

As close to Agatha as I have found so far, with just a touch of history thrown in too. Well formed "cast" with decent plot. I have not read others in the series, but did not feel that it was to my detriment.

Another winner

Would you listen to Royal Flush again? Why?

Yes. When time permits I'd probably listen to this one again. There were a few things that caught me off guard, and I'd like to see if I missed them, or they were missing.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

No, but few do. I'm just not wired that way.

Which scene was your favorite?

In other books Georgie stumbles (often literally) onto clues and situations where she finds herself in a position to learn some important fact. This is one of the first times we see her actually work something out and set out like a "real" investigator and it was nice seeing her take that step.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Ineffective and silly. I suck at tag lines.

Any additional comments?

The author seems to have a style of crafting 98% of a great cozy with a little action and a bit of romance, then tossing the whole thing out the window for an over the top contrived melodramatic action scene for the closer. This is the first time we see it, but not the last.

I'd like to see Georgie get into a more realistic tight spot at the end, and then get out of it on her own, as opposed to being rescued by an interested third party.

Fun and entertaining

I am loving listening to this series! This narrator does such a good and just makes the whole thing enjoyable! I liked reading the stories, but I think I like listening to these even better than reading a paper copy!

Engaging

The reader was terrific at using different voices and accents depict each character. Made the story much more real.

The joy continues!

The Royal Spyness series is, in my opinion, Rhys Bowen's best effort so far and Royal Flush is definitely a worthy addition to the series. Katherine Kellgren is marvelous and becomes the characters. I enjoyed this series to the max . If you haven't heard them, definitely start with the first one in the series and continue on through them all - you won't regret it!