Description
Book SynopsisGive up your foolish plan. If not you die.”
When elderly Queen Hanna of Iconia discovers the anonymous letter in her dress pocket, she knows someone in her household is spying on her. The queen is secretly planning a ceremony of atonement that she hopes will secure the royal succession. Journalist Charles Venables is asked to help identify the spy before her next public appearance. But when Queen Hanna is strangled with a museum relic known as the ‘Curse of the Herzgovins’, Venables knows an all too human hand is involved. But how was the murderer able to enter the queen’s heavily guarded chamber? And why was the body found wearing the royal ceremonial robes rather than the clothes she had retired in?
Many Golden Age books have a plot involving an imaginary European kingdom, inspired by ‘Ruritania’, the setting for the 1894 bestseller The Prisoner of Zenda. Ruritania became the basis for hundreds of imitations (Lutha, Graustark, and Riechentenburg to name but a few) as well as parodies — the Marx Brothers’ film, Duck Soup, features Groucho as the dictator of mythical Freedonia. The Ruritanian setting was so broadly known that the author refutes it directly in Death of a Queen. When Venables complains ‘This place sounds dreadfully like Ruritania’, his colleague replies ‘There’s nothing Ruritanian about Queen Hanna.’
Author Christopher St John Sprigg was a polymath who read widely across history, politics, and culture, and he put this knowledge to good use in Death of a Queen, devising Iconian history, heritage and architecture with an enthusiasm and realism that add to the book’s appeal.
Trade ReviewDorothy L. Sayers reviewed it for the Sunday Times, stating ‘Mr. Sprigg strikes exactly the right note for this kind of extravaganza; with enough gentle humour to make the absurdities of his one-horse kingdom entertaining and enough romantic glamour to keep the murders in key.’
Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Mysterious Mr Shillingford Chapter 2: The Affable Prince Augustus Chapter 3: The Royal Household Chapter 4: The Silken Curse Chapter 5: The Pleasant Princess Chapter 6: The Frightened Queen Chapter 7: The Puzzled Detective Chapter 8: The Inexplicable Death Chapter 9: The Eccentric Murderer Chapter 10 The Shot Ghost Chapter 11: The Offending Countess Chapter 12: The Mystified King Chapter 13: The Obvious Culprit Chapter 14: The Great Row Chapter 15: The Imperial Tokay Chapter 16: The Indignant Chief of Police Chapter 17: The Unqualified Doctor Chapter 18: The Lonely Monarch Chapter 19: The Rebellious Fly Chapter 20: The Stolen Document Chapter 21: The Royal Pardon Chapter 22: The Female Impersonator Chapter 23: The Eloping Princess Chapter 24: The Night Attack Chapter 25: The Vanished Detective Chapter 26: The Shocking Exhumation Chapter 27: The Resurrected Prince Chapter 28: The Last Explosion Chapter 29: The Real Regicide Epilogue
