Uneasy Lies The Crown opens with Queen Victoria on her death bed. She passes on to her loyal servant, Colin Hargreaves, a cryptic note. In a few days she is dead and the nation mourns.
Someone, though, appears to be taking advantage of the confusion caused by her loss. A body is found in the Tower of London, impossibly dressed like former King Henry VI, and it is trussed up with a sword through the chest, just as the king himself had died.
Colin brings his wife Lady Emily along, as they've solved many mysteries together in the past. Inspector Gale of The Yard is furious to see a Lady in these circumstances and orders her out.
Lady Emily goes outside, but begins examining the area surrounding the Tower for any way the killer could have gotten into the Tower and placed the body.
This is only the first of the scenes set by the murderer. As Colin and Emily race to decipher which King's deaths will be emulated and where, they seem to be mired further and further into another death that took place in a Welsh mine that is somehow connected.
Colin must protect the new king at any cost, ferreting out the murderer.
In the past, William Hargreaves places his new wife with friends as he goes to France to fight the One Hundred Years War at the side of Henry V. It's hard to see how the past events and the future tie together till the end, when Victoria's cryptic note finds its origin in the 1400's.
This is the 13th of 15 Lady Emily novels. It's our book group book this month, but I had already purchased the first in the series to try it out a month or so ago.
It's a wonderful historical mystery. Rich in period details, both in 1901 and 1415, this immersive story is a pleasure. I'll be reading the rest of the series from the beginning with And Only To Deceive Book #1
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