Name: Queen of Hearts
ISBN: 9780425260364

Rhys Bowen

Lady Georgianna Rannoch investigates a jewel thief while travelling with her mother by steamship to America to get a quickie divorce in Nevada, in the eighth novel of the series following Heirs and Graces.

Queen of Hearts

Erin 

Honestly, I loved this book quite a lot. The last Spyness novel was a bit of a letdown, and unless one has a particularly riveting plot, they do tend to all run together. However, this one not only had a change in scenery (taking place in California rather that dreary England), but had distinctively Agatha Christie vibes to it, which is always a thrill. It especially reminded me of And Then There Were None, or even the movie Clue (yes, based off of the board game). It was rather interesting that in this case, none of the characters seemed particularly guilty, which is either good writing by the author, or a bad set-up. In fact, the killer ends up being a character you've forgotten about for most of the book, if only because there are so many characters to keep track of, they don't really stand out as special. I also liked the appearance of several real historical characters as well, like Charlie Chaplin. And even though Rhys comes up with the most hilarious ways to make sure all her main characters show up in every novel (how Belinda manages to follow Georgie around to the obscurest of places always baffles me), this time it seemed quite genuine. There was still a romance between Georgie and Darcy in this one (obviously), but at least this time it wasn't a matter of "will they ever get married?" The first seven books in this series I read in quite quick succession last year, and thus read this eighth one after a little bit of a break, but it was a good one to come back from a break on and now I can't wait to get my hands on the next one.