Mystery maven Rhys Bowen is back with her supersleuth Lady Georgiana “Georgie” Rannoch, a distant cousin of the British royal family in the 1930s. When the last volume, MALICE AT THE PALACE, ended, Georgie was being whisked off to Scotland by her beau, Darcy O’Mara, to get married. But their would-be wedded bliss is cut short in Bowen’s latest adventure, CROWNED AND DANGEROUS, which is a solid addition to the Royal Spyness canon.

"[L]ongtime readers will cheer on the progression of Georgie and Darcy’s relationship."

When the novel opens, Darcy and Georgie are headed to Scotland, but are waylaid by a snowstorm...and the news that Darcy’s father, an Irish nobleman, Lord Kilhenny, has been arrested for murder! The famously ill-tempered baron supposedly bashed in the head of an American man who purchased his family’s ancestral castle. Darcy rushes home to his father’s aid, leaving Georgie in the lurch.

But our plucky heroine isn’t about to abandon the man whom readers --- and Georgie --- have come to adore. She joins Darcy, his irascible father, his quirky relatives, and an adventurous, seductive Polish princess to solve the whodunit that puts Darcy’s very future, and Georgie’s life, in the balance.

While CROWNED AND DANGEROUS doesn’t present a particularly innovative mystery, longtime readers will cheer on the progression of Georgie and Darcy’s relationship. Bowen has crafted a lovable, if slightly snobbily aristocratic, couple that fans will ship until Tumblr has vanished into the internet ether (#Georcy? #Dargiana?). Rather than keeping their relationship in timeless limbo, Bowen roots her hero and heroine firmly in a historical period and shows their development as individuals and as a pair.