Review: IN FARLEIGH FIELD, Rhys Bowen

• this edition published by Lake Union Publishing 2017
• ISBN 978-1477818299
• 378 pages
• source: review copy supplied by publicist
• Author website

Synopsis (source: publicist)

Farleigh Place is removed from the war by more than just miles.
While bombs rain down on London just an hour away, life goes on as usual at this Downton Abbey-like estate in the countryside.
Hampered only by a skeletal wartime staff, a dwindling supply of meat coupons, and an army regiment that's taken up residence at the big house, Farleigh is almost too idyllic to be real—until one night, when a soldier with a failed parachute falls to his death on the grounds, and the war literally hits home for Lord Westerham and his five daughters.

In Bowen's latest page-turner, her fictional storyline is rooted in historical truth. The pro-German societies referenced in this novel were known to have existed in England in the early days of the war. Some of the most dangerous were composed primarily of aristocrats — and there are plenty of aristocrats in Farleigh. So when the dead parachutist, carrying only a photograph, is presumed to be a German spy sent to deliver a message to someone in the vicinity of Farleigh Field, the neighborhood’s most powerful and wealthy aren’t ruled out as targets of suspicion. Ben Cresswell, an M15 operative and son of the local vicar, is dispatched to find the traitor in their midst. And though this quiet bucolic region may seem like an unlikely place to harbor a sympathizer, the area’s black marketeers, arrogant pragmatists, and foreign refugees also raise concerns.

With the help of his lifelong friend and secret love, Lady Pamela — herself a civil servant who cracks German codes at Bletchley Park — Ben investigates for spies and sympathizers. When he learns of The Ring, a secret society that wants to depose the king and make peace with Germany, he can hardly believe it's real. Can Ben and Pamela infiltrate The Ring? And can Ben find out what the photograph means in time to stop the crisis that could bring Britain to its knees?

My Take

Despite the fact that it is now over 70 years since the end of World War II, "behind-the-scenes" glimpses of what was going on during the war make popular reading, whether fact or fictional.

The setting of IN FARLEIGH FIELD is England, May and June 1941. The war could go either way, and already it has taken a great toll on both sides. Many of those living in England believe that if it ends soon, there will be only one possible winner, so resistance and alertness is the key.  Farleigh Place, Lord Westerham's family seat, has already become the base of the Royal West Kents. Unknown to Lord Westerham two of his daughters are already significantly involved in the war effort.

What I liked about this novel was not only the attempt to get the history and the setting right, but the quite believable story of an attempt to bring England to its knees with one or two catastrophic events. The economic and social dislocation caused by the war is well described, supported by a credible cast of characters. Very good reading, particularly if you enjoy historical crime fiction.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read
A ROYAL PAIN
HER ROYAL SPYNESS

About the author
Rhys Bowen is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Royal Spyness Series, Molly Murphy Mysteries, and Constable Evans. She has won the Agatha Best Novel Award and has been nominated for the Edgar Best Novel. Rhys’s titles have received rave reviews around the globe.
Read more 

Review: HER ROYAL SPYNESS, Rhys Bowen

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, 2007/2008, ISBN 978-425-22252-2, 324 pages

Georgie, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, related to the king of England through his grandmother Queen Victoria, is 34th in line to the English throne. Georgie is the product of her father's second marriage to a "bolter", and at 21 is living in Castle Rannoch with no real income and no prospects.

She determines to take charge of her own future when she overhears a conversation between her half brother Binky and his wife Fig about the Queen's intentions to use Georgie as marriage bait for a visiting Romanian Royal. Georgie decides to make her escape to Rannoch House in London despite the fact that she will have no maid or other help in the house with her. Queen Mary hears that she has come to London and commissions Georgie to be her eyes and ears in the Prince of Wales' escalating affair with an American woman.

In the meantime Georgie has to decide how she will earn an income and life becomes rather complicated when a man is drowned fully clothed in a bath in Rannoch House. Both Georgie and her brother Binky are suspected because the dead man had been claiming that he was owed their dead father's estate through an old gambling debt. Meanwhile Georgie, always a rather clumsy person, begins to realise that the little accidents happening to her, each of which could so easily have been fatal, might not be so accidental after all. Who among her friends would want her dead?

This is a cozy with a difference, a light and enjoyable read.

My rating: 4.2

I reviewed the second in the series A ROYAL PAIN recently. Bowen has set these novels at the beginning of the 1930s. England is in depression, unemployment is high, and here is an aristocracy that has not yet realised that the old way of life is nearly gone. Many of the minor aristocracy will soon be like Binky, struggling with the upkeep of two large houses, and many like Georgie will have to think in terms of getting "real" jobs. Some among Georgie's friends have already done so. There are some delightful characters to meet in these books including Georgie's Cockney grandfather.

Review: A ROYAL PAIN, Rhys Bowen

Berkley Prime Crime Mysteries, 2008, 307 pages, ISBN 978-0-425-22163-1

Georgie, Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, related to the king of England through his grandmother Queen Victoria, is 34th in line to the English throne. She belongs to a branch of the royal family rather down on its luck, and survives by cleaning houses. She is a favourite though of the Queen who asks that she play hostess to a Bavarian princess whom Queen Mary would rather like to get her son David, at present dallying with "the American woman", interested in.

From the moment that Princess Hanni, and her attendant "pain in the neck" the Baroness, arrive on Georgie's doorstep at Rannoch House, murder seems to follow them. Hanni appears to have learnt her English through watching American gangster movies and constantly displays her command of the language with inappropriate gangster speak. To keep up pretences, Georgie has to co-opt her Cockney grandfather and his lady friend Mrs 'uggins as her hired help. Their presence in the novel provides added elements of humour.

I kept changing my mind on how I would rate this. I thought at first that it was a bit more chick-lit, a bit lighter than I normally like to read, but I was struck by its historical depth, and in the end I came to like the main character Georgie. The picture Bowen draws of Queen Mary (May) whom I remember as a rather severe looking dowager, is an interesting one, and I can understand her concern with her son's romantic involvement with "the American woman". My mother's generation world wide were horrified by his eventual abdication and took almost malicious comfort in the knowledge that Wallis Simpson could never become queen.

So yes, A ROYAL PAIN is in some senses a romp, but in others a bit of serious historical fiction. I won't be alone in working out "whodunnit" fairly early on, but as always there is the quest to see if you are right.

My rating 4.3

A ROYAL PAIN is the second in the "Royal Spyness" series featuring Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie.
1. Her Royal Spyness (2007)
2. A Royal Pain (2008)
3. Royal Flush (2009) - still to be published?

Rhys Bowen has a staggering number of awards and nominations under her belt.
A ROYAL PAIN has been nominated for an Agatha Award for best mystery; and Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery nominee - the latter will be decided next week at Left Coast Crime, where Rhys Bowen will be an author I want to meet.