Amateur detective Queen Elizabeth II is back in this hugely entertaining follow-up to The Windsor Knot, in which Her Majesty must determine how a missing painting is connected to the shocking death of a staff member inside Buckingham Palace.
It’s the height of summer 2016, and the Queen has put the sad business of the death of a young Russian at Windsor behind her. After all, she has pressing duties to attend to, such as meeting with the brand-new prime minister, keeping an eye on the tumultuous election in the States, and the smaller but perhaps more frustrating matter of locating a beloved painting that seems to have gone missing. She relies on her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodie, to make sure she’s fully apprised of the goings on in the palace and help solve any issues that arise.
Rozie holds Her Majesty in the highest esteem and does everything in her power not to disappoint "the Boss." But she has recently become aware of a spate of poison pen letters some of the staff have received, and though her first instinct is to inform the Queen, more senior members of the household assure her they have everything in hand. When one of the targets of the letters turns up dead in the pool house at Buckingham Palace, however, Rozie decides it’s time to alert the Queen. After all, though the rest of the staff and public may not realize it, Elizabeth is the keenest sleuth among them. Sometimes, it takes a Queen’s eye to see connections where no one else can.