A review of A Death in Diamonds
by
Sophia
Bennett
It was the oysters that first tipped off the Queen. There’s strict protocol that shellfish is not served at public functions (too risky for the royal digestion), but here they were at the state dinner in Paris. Then there was the missing speech, an unwelcome guest on a state visit, a tube of face cream tainted with itching powder…it’s clear that someone is trying to sabotage the young queen on her rounds of public appearances. At the same time, the Palace and all of London is abuzz with the news of a murder in a swanky Chelsea neighborhood. A high-priced courtesan is found dead on the bed, dressed as a princess, complete with a diamond-studded tiara atop her head. On the floor at her feet is an Argentine gambler and criminal, a German-made knife wedged in his eye. Downstairs, a group of well-known and powerful men—many closely acquainted with the Royal Family—played cards, seemingly oblivious to the death scene above. The queen is of course troubled by the deaths, but when someone very close to her promptly uses her as an alibi for the night in question, she knows she has to discover what happened that night, because she knows the alibi is false. Yet even though Elizabeth II might be the highest ranking person in the United Kingdom, her freedoms are remarkably limited—and now too might the number of people she can really trust.
A Death in Diamonds is S. J. Bennett’s fourth book in the HM The Queen Investigates mystery series, yet it might be the best yet, and a good place for newcomers to start. The earlier books are set in the 2010s and feature a very different type of royal household, but A Death in Diamonds acts as a sort of origin story independent of the later books. It’s 1957, and the young queen is still getting her footing in a household still mostly dominated by members appointed by her father—the men in moustaches, as the Queen and Prince Phillip call them. While Elizabeth might have been on the throne for a few years already and never set a foot wrong, her royal secretaries seem more condescending than dutiful to her, and seem more stuck in an Empire past than the world as it really is. But Elizabeth is no fool and spots the unassuming typist Joan McGraw (Irish descent, East Ender and working-class) as a kindred spirit who knows how to ask discrete questions. Joan is up for the challenge—her experiences working at Bletchley Park during the war gave her some very valuable skills—but like Elizabeth, she tends to be underestimated as a woman. Bennett does an excellent job building the world of the royal court in 1957 and the pressures on Britain post-empire and World War II. While the plot does take a while to get going, the connections (or not) between the Chelsea crime and the sabotage at court gradually become clear. Like earlier books in the series, Bennett’s strongest element is the characterization of the Queen and those that she relies on to solve the mysteries that come to her attention. Both the Queen and Joan are fully-fleshed out, and the supporting characters (mostly invented, but including some real-life figures) are believable. Joan, in particular, seems like she would be a rich character who would easily carry future installments. Bennett’s closing historical note testifies to the amount of research she does with each novel, and it especially shows with this entry. A Death in Diamonds is a good bet for fans of cozy, amateur sleuth mysteries, and one doesn’t have to have read the previous entries (although those, starting with The Windsor Knot, are also highly recommended).