Everyone’s favorite 1930s sleuth, Lady Georgiana Rannoch, is back in FOUR WEDDINGS AND MAYBE A FUNERAL. Rhys Bowen’s heroine is a (fictional) minor member of the British royal family who earned her stripes by solving mysteries and snooping for her cousin, Queen Mary. Now, Georgie is heading out on her own --- she’s renouncing her place in the Line of Succession in order to marry her Catholic love, the Honorable Darcy O’Mara.

"It’s exciting for Bowen fans to see Georgie and Darcy finally reaching the altar --- but if a nefarious someone has their way, Georgie might not make it down the aisle."

It’s exciting for Bowen fans to see Georgie and Darcy finally reaching the altar --- but if a nefarious someone has their way, Georgie might not make it down the aisle. Georgie must branch out on her own and find a home for herself and Darcy. Oh so conveniently, just when Georgie is at her wits’ end, her rich former stepfather offers his country home for the newlyweds to live in. So Georgie high-tails it off to “Downton Abbey”country, only to find the home in disarray. The previous butler is mysteriously dead after falling down the stairs; a terrifying woman in white haunts one wing of the manor; and the household staff is terribly incompetent.

Bowen has spent the past 10 books or so setting up Georgie as the antithesis to her counterparts like Ladies Edith and Mary, making her humble personally and financially, kind to servants, and more of an Average Jane than a noblewoman. But she undoes that here, turning Georgie into a tyrant who rules her new home with an iron fist. While the servants are indeed annoying and not so good at their jobs, Georgie becomes inherently unlikable as she tries to solve a mystery that the reader doesn’t care much about by book’s end.

Unfortunately, FOUR WEDDINGS AND MAYBE A FUNERAL is a disappointing installment in a series that has a tendency to be uneven in quality.