Review

January, 1933.  It’s a cold, dreary winter in London, and everyone who’s anyone is fleeing the city in search of warmer climes. Even Lady Georgiana Rannoch’s bumbling brother Binky and his odious wife Fig are making plans to vacation on the sparking shores of the French Riviera.  But seeing as they didn’t invite Georgie to come with, and she can’t afford to buy a ticket on her own, it looks like she’ll be stuck in England by her lonesome – or worse, exiled to the drafty family castle in Scotland.

Then Georgie receives a summons from her cousin, the Queen, and things start looking up.  It seems Her Majesty suspects Sir Toby Groper of having pocked a snuffbox from her collection, and since Sir Toby is now vacationing in France with the rest of London’s upper crust, she wants Georgie to go to the Riviera and steal it back.   

Upon arriving in France, Georgie decides to become acquainted with Sir Toby in hopes of gaining access to his home. In the process of doing so, however, she discovers Sir Toby to be lecherous as well as larcenous, and ends up having to jump from his yacht in order to protect her virtue.  Rattled, but not daunted, she dries off and heads back to Sir Toby’s, deciding to take advantage of his time at sea to break into his house and recover the Queen’s property.  Unfortunately, before she can gain access, she finds Sir Toby dead by the pool, his head bashed in.  The police, of course, quickly finger Georgie as Suspect Number One and place her under constant surveillance, making it practically impossible for her to get back into Sir Toby’s home OR investigate his death.  Can she recover the snuffbox and clear her name, or will her French vacation be spent behind bars?

Naughty in Nice is the fifth of Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness Mysteries.  It’s Agatha Christie meets P.G. Wodehouse, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.  Dukes, duchesses, champagne, caviar, yachts, villas, and a murder to boot, this book is the kind of European vacation a woman (well, this woman, anyway) dreams of taking.  The prose is spirited, the pace is breathtaking, and the sense of atmosphere is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  The mystery, while a tad slight, is cleverly plotted, and the characters are drawn to perfection.  The ending relies a bit too heavily on coincidence for my taste, but the final scenes are so twisty and turny and thrilling that it’s a flaw quite easily overlooked. 

Georgiana is a smart, sweet, cheeky heroine, and her chemistry with series love interest Darcy is simply marvelous. Her mother, the party-loving, man-eating starlet, is sultry, conniving, and hilarious.  The Marquis de Ronchard (aka Jean-Paul) is so seductive and charming that the pages on which he appears practically smolder.  The slimy and walrus-like Sir Toby makes for such a fabulous villain that you’ll be rooting for his demise by the time it takes place. And a surprise cameo from Coco Chanel, far from being stunt casting, adds style, glamour, and an air of authenticity to Bowen’s tale.

This is the first thing I’ve ever read by Rhys Bowen, but if Naughty in Nice is any indication, I’ve just found a new must-read author.  I adored this book.  Go out and buy it.  (Yes, right now!)

Reviewed by Kat