Love and Death Among the Cheetahs

I actually hadn't read any of the other books in the series, but I was able to pick this one up just fine. The author gave a very thoughtful note at the beginning about historical context, and it seemed to me the world was very carefully drawn. That said, it did take some time before the action really started, and even longer before the murder. And then the wrap-up was a bit abrupt. Nonetheless, I enjoyed our narrator very much, and this was a fun vacation read!

/a>Summary: The newly married Georgie and Darcy honeymoon in Kenya. 

I have been reading almost entirely non-fiction for most of the last 2 years. I am hitting a point where I know I need to rebalance my reading a bit. I just finished the whole Mysterious Benedict Society, and I will start the newest Inspector Gamache. And I picked up the latest Tourist novel this morning that I will probably start after that. So I am returning to old familiar authors, as I tend to do when I need to find some refreshment.

Cozy mysteries like Rhys Bowens seem particularly designed to comfort and not challenge. This long series (the 15th will be published in October) follows a cousin of King George in the 1930s. Her family is poor and has little more than their title, and as the younger daughter, she has less. But she is often in the right place at the right time and solves crimes or fixes problems for the Queen. Her now-husband, Darcy, is an Irish peer and has done much the same in a semi-official capacity for the British foreign office. They are newly married, and both tend to keep secrets from one another for various reasons that they are still working through. It comes out fairly early that while Darcy was trying to get them on an exotic honeymoon, they were also following the trail of a jewel thief. But even that isn't quite the whole story, which again comes out a bit later.

This mystery is based on some real events and characters. The series is getting far along enough in time to now have the rise of Nazi Germany come up in every novel. Part of Georgie's work has been to inform the Queen of Mrs. Simpson's romance with her cousin Edward the VIII. They again play a small role in the story.

This was a quick read, and I got what I enjoy out of the books. I like Georgie and Darcy. The calling out of the colonialism and racism of the British in Kenya was evident in the book. The mystery is solved partly because Georgie is disturbed by the racism of the high society around her. Cozy mysteries are known for having neat solutions, and Love Among the Cheetahs wrapped up very quickly once the clean-up started. I picked up the next one on sale sometime last year, so I will keep reading because there is a comfort to long-familiar characters.