THE COUNTESS OF PRAGUE introduces the indomitable Beatrice von Falklenburg, otherwise known as Trixie, who is 28 when we meet her in 1904 in Prague.

A bored wife who does not enjoy her privileges in high society --- and whose aristocratic husband has fallen on hard times anyway --- Trixie finds a new career as a detective, when the body of an old man is found in the Vltava River. The dead man is identified as the former officer and friend of her colorful military Uncle Bertie --- or is he indeed the dead man? The plot thickens immediately, revolving around a Tontine, a gambling syndicate based on the life expectancy of the members’ proxies. The corpse (maybe) was the uncle’s ticket to fortune.

"Weeks, a castle restorer, filmmaker and writer, is a Brit living in Prague, and I predict that his clever plots, historical accuracy and descriptive flair will make this series a hit."

Trixie plunges into the tangled web of the case as it evolves, in what author Stephen Weeks promises will be the first of a 10-part series that covers 10 years, up through the onset of World War I in 1914. Weeks tells a rollicking tale that takes its heroine through the changing Old World order of Europe in historically accurate fashion, with London and Prague providing the primary locations. Teaming up with lower-class waifs, her butler and maid, Trixie disguises herself as a young man and is suspected of committing a new grisly murder herself. Eventually (of course) she figures it all out in a rousing climax that involves King Edward, Kaiser Wilhelm, a lethal gas, homophobia and blackmail.

Weeks, a castle restorer, filmmaker and writer, is a Brit living in Prague, and I predict that his clever plots, historical accuracy and descriptive flair will make this series a hit. Here, for instance, is his sketch of the chief archivist for The Times of London, a minor but delicious character, “a man of very small stature, who sat on his high stool like a gnome. He had lank hair, a high forehead and eyes that were so shrunken-looking behind the extremely thick lenses of his round spectacles that his gaze resembled that of a reptile.”