Revenge, Served Royal

Connally’s workmanlike third Regency-era historical featuring Lady Petra Forsyth (after All’s Fair in Love and Treachery) begins in the kitchens of the plucky sleuth’s London mansion. The cook, Mrs. Bing, has received an invitation from Queen Charlotte to spend a week at Windsor Castle competing against nine other cooks in a baking competition for the royal couple’s 54th wedding anniversary. Lady Petra, meanwhile, has been invited to participate as one of the judges. Nearly 150 guests arrive to board at the castle, with hundreds of others lodging at two nearby royal residences. When one of Lady Petra’s fellow judges is found dead, chauffeur Oliver Beecham—brother of Lady Petra’s faithful maid—is accused of the crime. Certain of Oliver’s innocence, Lady Petra vows to ferret out the true culprit among the guests. Connally adorns the plot’s standard cozy beats with a few exciting fistfights and a dash of heart-fluttering romance between Lady Petra and a handsome royal intelligence offer, but there are few surprises on offer, and her cast of characters is strictly two-dimensional. There’s little here to separate this from the pack. (Nov.)