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Princess Louise #1
King and Joker
A practical joker has invaded the confines of Buckingham Palace. But the jokes cease to be funny when a corpse appears in the throne room--and 13-year-old Princess Louise uncovers a dark trail of carefully-kept royal secrets winding through the palace. "Great fun . . . Dickinson . . . has had the ingenuity and discretion to invent his own royal line".--New York Times Book Review.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1976
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About the author
Peter Dickinson
141 books156 followersPeter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL was a prolific English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories.
Peter Dickinson lived in Hampshire with his second wife, author Robin McKinley. He wrote more than fifty novels for adults and young readers. He won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Award twice, and his novel The Blue Hawk won The Guardian Award in 1975.
Peter Dickinson lived in Hampshire with his second wife, author Robin McKinley. He wrote more than fifty novels for adults and young readers. He won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Award twice, and his novel The Blue Hawk won The Guardian Award in 1975.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
November 1, 2011
Gosh, what a great book. An Alternate History, in which the line of British royal succession was shuffled. But there is so much more! A delicious range of secrets, some dating back to the Edwardian age, a current crime, interesting murders. And, best of all, a peek into the family life of a British royal family.
Peter Dickinson wears many different author hats, which gives him great power and conviction. The SF experience gives him authority with the alternate history; his many mystery novels make the crimes and solutions solid, and his YA track record make the young Princess Louise sound psychologically credible.
And, there is a sequel! Titled SKELETON-IN-WAITING.
The most awful and unpleasant thing about this little duo of novels is that there are no more than two books. This is the book I instantly returned to in August 1997 when Diana, princess of Wales, died in that car crash. I needed to get involved in British royals with different, solveable problems. At the time I thought about emailing Dickinson and urging him to comfort us by writing more, many many more books in the series, and I didn't. Now I fear it is too late.
Peter Dickinson wears many different author hats, which gives him great power and conviction. The SF experience gives him authority with the alternate history; his many mystery novels make the crimes and solutions solid, and his YA track record make the young Princess Louise sound psychologically credible.
And, there is a sequel! Titled SKELETON-IN-WAITING.
The most awful and unpleasant thing about this little duo of novels is that there are no more than two books. This is the book I instantly returned to in August 1997 when Diana, princess of Wales, died in that car crash. I needed to get involved in British royals with different, solveable problems. At the time I thought about emailing Dickinson and urging him to comfort us by writing more, many many more books in the series, and I didn't. Now I fear it is too late.
November 20, 2025
This unusual novel takes place in a counterfactual world, where George V's older brother, the Duke of Clarence, did not die young but lived to inherit the throne, thereby eliminating the need for that whole abdication crisis mess and the Windsor dynasty. (Applause) In the 1970s his heir confronts what at first seems to be a prankster. Then the pranks get nastier and closer to the royal family. Is there perhaps a terrorist inside Buckingham Palace? Is one of the royals to blame? BTW, the king's daughter loves Led Zeppelin.
July 5, 2019
2019 bk 205. In an alternative universe King Victor II sits on the throne of England and has two children, Bertie and Louise (Lulu to her family). A practical joker has struck Buckingham Palace and the King is not amused. These jokes escalate to murder, with the teenage Princess Louise being the eyewitness. As if being a Princess isn't hard enough it is time for secrets to be revealed and hard changes to occur in her young life. This is as much a psychological assessment of the royal life as it is a murder mystery.
June 6, 2022
[Warning, spoilers, although I've read this one two or three times without any diminution of enjoyment]
“King and Joker” is sort of a hybrid of Dickinson’s two specialties, adult mysteries and YA fantasy. It is a mystery, but the viewpoint character, Princess Louise, is 13 years old, and the book takes place in an alternate universe. It’s not very alternate, though: Dickinson has simply created his own British royal family by having George V’s older brother not die, and instead become King Victor I. (This is made easier by the fact that George V married his late brother’s fiancee: British royalty is very strange.) The book takes place during the reign of Victor I’s grandson, Victor II, who ascended to the throne as a boy after his father died in a boating accident: Louise is Victor II’s daughter. Otherwise world history is exactly the same: Dickinson even has Louise’s ultra-reactionary, Nazi-sympathizing grandmother speculate that, should Victor I have died of the flu that in fact did kill him, nothing about the history of Britain would be any different (as a way of casting scorn on the ineffectualness of the British monarchy). The new royal family is, however, quite different from the real-world one: more middle-class, closer (on the surface, at least) to modern-day Scandinavian royalty. This is a consequence of the king’s father’s early death and the fact that his mother (I think she is supposed to be a Russian exile, though I’m not entirely sure) is both a diehard monarchist and an extremely poisonous individual: this gave the government of the day more influence than was usual on Victor II’s upbringing — at Labor PM Atlee’s insistence, he learned a profession, training as a doctor — and also gave the king himself a dislike of being too regal. Thus, when we meet the royal family at breakfast at the start of the book, they are trying to find palace expenses they can cut, to show solidarity with a nation that is in recession (following the first oil shock: the book is set in the mid-70s). Louise’s older brother Harry, the Prince of Wales, is attending the LSE (far more modern than Cambridge, where Charles went to university, much less Sandhurst, where both of Charles’s sons went): he is a typical ‘70s college student, a hairy leftist vegetarian. Louise herself goes to a comprehensive school, i.e. an ordinary public school, not a fancy boarding school. Breakfast is interrupted by a practical joke: somebody has replaced the ham (which is in a covered dish) with a toad from Harry’s zoo (he keeps a number of pets). The contrast with the real Windsors is clear.
And yet despite all the differences, it’s the continuities that matter most in the end. The book is largely a coming-of-age story, and Louise’s coming of age consists precisely of her arrival at a fuller understanding of what it means to be royalty. The impression that the reader initially gets — the one that Louise has at the start of the book — is that for Dickinson’s imaginary royal family, being royal is merely the outer surface, and the nice ordinary bourgeois family that they appear to be when alone is the truth. But in reality, the nice bourgeois family is just another surface: truer than the carefully stage-managed image they give to the public, but certainly not the whole truth. Royalty means the exercise of power, even for such a tame-seeming king as Victor II, and Dickinson drives this point home throughout the book. This is done in part through Durdy, the novel’s second most important character. Nursemaid to multiple generations of English royals — in a flashback, she is shown bringing Edward VII’s three daughters (as small children) to visit their grandmother, Queen Victoria — her memories allow us to see the commonalities between Victor II’s seemingly modern monarchy and his predecessors. In particular, there’s the fate of her fellow nursery-maid, Catriona, with whom Durdy has a brief but torrid affair before Catriona leaves the royal service in an attempt to avoid Edward VII’s attentions, an attempt at which she is not successful. Catriona’s great-grandson McGivan is the spitting image of his cousin Victor II, and hence is plucked from his job with the Scottish police to come be a body double for the King: alas, his acting ability proves to be insufficient for the part, and he is relegated to a minor position on the palace’s security detail. The reader will rapidly guess that he is the titular joker, partly out of resentment at the way his life has been upended for no reason and partly in an attempt to save his job, clearly on the chopping block as part of the cuts. And yet this turns out to be only the most minor example of Victor II thoughtlessly wreaking havoc. More consequential is the way that he uses his resemblance to McGivan to seduce McGivan’s girlfriend, the bed-bound Durdy’s nurse: when he is caught by Louise, he inadvertently gives McGivan an alibi, thus creating further confusion when McGivan turns up dead and the practical jokes get violent. (The King’s subsequent claims that he was really doing this for McGivan’s benefit and that it’s not the kind of thing he usually does are appropriately discounted by both the reader and his daughter.) And most important of all is the revelation that Louise is actually the daughter of Nonny, the Queen’s private secretary, the King having managed to arrange things so that his first love (who had no desire to be queen) could remain his mistress. It’s telling that, despite Durdy’s strict Victorian respectability — all she’s willing to tell Louise about it is that her father and Nonny were already “very good friends” before he before he became King — she knows of it all, as she was present at Louise’s birth, and is, if not approving, far from shocked. This is how royalty is, and who should know better than her? What’s exceptional is, first, the way that, in this book, Victor II’s sins — the ways that he rearranges the lives of those around him to suit himself — come down on his head, and second, the fact that, having learned this, Louise’s response is to want out. Yes, it’s her family, and she still loves her father, even if he’s not the person she thought he was, but she doesn’t want to be a princess any more. (Victor II, who has paid very little attention to the feelings of anyone in the book, including his daughter, responds by attempting to guilt-trip Louise out of this decision by appealing to her respect for the feelings of her birth mother and her adoptive mother, a brilliantly subtle way of demonstrating that if you scratch even the best of kings you get a slimy bastard.) In this way, “King and Joker” resembles Dickinson’s historical mysteries that are also assaults on English class society: even a nice ordinary respectable-seeming royal family is still a royal family.
Of course, since this is Peter Dickinson, the book is not at all didactic, but rather brilliantly written and wholly enjoyable. Louise is entirely sympathetic, and her voice — that of a precocious not-quite-adolescent who knows more than the adults sometimes realize but not as quite much as she thinks — is note-perfect. The other royals and their associates are also very well done, Dickinson being an expert at the little touches — such as the way that the Queen’s Spanish accent disappears when she gets upset — that make characters in a book seem like real people. Durdy also works very well, being a type of character that Dickinson likes to write (given his conviction that the mysteries of the present cannot be understood without understanding the past): old, mentally sharp but physically inactive (she is paralyzed from the neck down), with nothing to do but think and remember. The evolution of our viewpoint over the course of the book is also carefully handled: Victor II’s recurrent attempts to present himself as the voice of reason become steadily less credible as the book goes on. And of course the mystery is very well constructed along classical lines: the red herrings are expertly distributed, with McGivan’s seeming alibi being a very clever move to divert attention away from the murderer even though McGivan is the murderer’s first victim. As in all the best classic mysteries, the real killer is obvious in hindsight but somehow not guessed. But the key is that every time Louise digs further — the fact that everything starts with some practical jokes makes it reasonable that a 13-year-old girl should be the closest thing this mystery has to a detective — she uncovers more secrets that point, not towards the killer, but back to her own family. Thus the mystery pulls you through Louise’s arc of discovery — her breakdown (which feels entirely earned) coincides with its climax — even though in the end the two aren’t directly connected. Like most of Dickinson’s mysteries, “King and Joker” pulls off the rare feat of transcending the genre without giving up on its pleasures, and its small-r republican point of view is a pleasant bonus.
“King and Joker” is sort of a hybrid of Dickinson’s two specialties, adult mysteries and YA fantasy. It is a mystery, but the viewpoint character, Princess Louise, is 13 years old, and the book takes place in an alternate universe. It’s not very alternate, though: Dickinson has simply created his own British royal family by having George V’s older brother not die, and instead become King Victor I. (This is made easier by the fact that George V married his late brother’s fiancee: British royalty is very strange.) The book takes place during the reign of Victor I’s grandson, Victor II, who ascended to the throne as a boy after his father died in a boating accident: Louise is Victor II’s daughter. Otherwise world history is exactly the same: Dickinson even has Louise’s ultra-reactionary, Nazi-sympathizing grandmother speculate that, should Victor I have died of the flu that in fact did kill him, nothing about the history of Britain would be any different (as a way of casting scorn on the ineffectualness of the British monarchy). The new royal family is, however, quite different from the real-world one: more middle-class, closer (on the surface, at least) to modern-day Scandinavian royalty. This is a consequence of the king’s father’s early death and the fact that his mother (I think she is supposed to be a Russian exile, though I’m not entirely sure) is both a diehard monarchist and an extremely poisonous individual: this gave the government of the day more influence than was usual on Victor II’s upbringing — at Labor PM Atlee’s insistence, he learned a profession, training as a doctor — and also gave the king himself a dislike of being too regal. Thus, when we meet the royal family at breakfast at the start of the book, they are trying to find palace expenses they can cut, to show solidarity with a nation that is in recession (following the first oil shock: the book is set in the mid-70s). Louise’s older brother Harry, the Prince of Wales, is attending the LSE (far more modern than Cambridge, where Charles went to university, much less Sandhurst, where both of Charles’s sons went): he is a typical ‘70s college student, a hairy leftist vegetarian. Louise herself goes to a comprehensive school, i.e. an ordinary public school, not a fancy boarding school. Breakfast is interrupted by a practical joke: somebody has replaced the ham (which is in a covered dish) with a toad from Harry’s zoo (he keeps a number of pets). The contrast with the real Windsors is clear.
And yet despite all the differences, it’s the continuities that matter most in the end. The book is largely a coming-of-age story, and Louise’s coming of age consists precisely of her arrival at a fuller understanding of what it means to be royalty. The impression that the reader initially gets — the one that Louise has at the start of the book — is that for Dickinson’s imaginary royal family, being royal is merely the outer surface, and the nice ordinary bourgeois family that they appear to be when alone is the truth. But in reality, the nice bourgeois family is just another surface: truer than the carefully stage-managed image they give to the public, but certainly not the whole truth. Royalty means the exercise of power, even for such a tame-seeming king as Victor II, and Dickinson drives this point home throughout the book. This is done in part through Durdy, the novel’s second most important character. Nursemaid to multiple generations of English royals — in a flashback, she is shown bringing Edward VII’s three daughters (as small children) to visit their grandmother, Queen Victoria — her memories allow us to see the commonalities between Victor II’s seemingly modern monarchy and his predecessors. In particular, there’s the fate of her fellow nursery-maid, Catriona, with whom Durdy has a brief but torrid affair before Catriona leaves the royal service in an attempt to avoid Edward VII’s attentions, an attempt at which she is not successful. Catriona’s great-grandson McGivan is the spitting image of his cousin Victor II, and hence is plucked from his job with the Scottish police to come be a body double for the King: alas, his acting ability proves to be insufficient for the part, and he is relegated to a minor position on the palace’s security detail. The reader will rapidly guess that he is the titular joker, partly out of resentment at the way his life has been upended for no reason and partly in an attempt to save his job, clearly on the chopping block as part of the cuts. And yet this turns out to be only the most minor example of Victor II thoughtlessly wreaking havoc. More consequential is the way that he uses his resemblance to McGivan to seduce McGivan’s girlfriend, the bed-bound Durdy’s nurse: when he is caught by Louise, he inadvertently gives McGivan an alibi, thus creating further confusion when McGivan turns up dead and the practical jokes get violent. (The King’s subsequent claims that he was really doing this for McGivan’s benefit and that it’s not the kind of thing he usually does are appropriately discounted by both the reader and his daughter.) And most important of all is the revelation that Louise is actually the daughter of Nonny, the Queen’s private secretary, the King having managed to arrange things so that his first love (who had no desire to be queen) could remain his mistress. It’s telling that, despite Durdy’s strict Victorian respectability — all she’s willing to tell Louise about it is that her father and Nonny were already “very good friends” before he before he became King — she knows of it all, as she was present at Louise’s birth, and is, if not approving, far from shocked. This is how royalty is, and who should know better than her? What’s exceptional is, first, the way that, in this book, Victor II’s sins — the ways that he rearranges the lives of those around him to suit himself — come down on his head, and second, the fact that, having learned this, Louise’s response is to want out. Yes, it’s her family, and she still loves her father, even if he’s not the person she thought he was, but she doesn’t want to be a princess any more. (Victor II, who has paid very little attention to the feelings of anyone in the book, including his daughter, responds by attempting to guilt-trip Louise out of this decision by appealing to her respect for the feelings of her birth mother and her adoptive mother, a brilliantly subtle way of demonstrating that if you scratch even the best of kings you get a slimy bastard.) In this way, “King and Joker” resembles Dickinson’s historical mysteries that are also assaults on English class society: even a nice ordinary respectable-seeming royal family is still a royal family.
Of course, since this is Peter Dickinson, the book is not at all didactic, but rather brilliantly written and wholly enjoyable. Louise is entirely sympathetic, and her voice — that of a precocious not-quite-adolescent who knows more than the adults sometimes realize but not as quite much as she thinks — is note-perfect. The other royals and their associates are also very well done, Dickinson being an expert at the little touches — such as the way that the Queen’s Spanish accent disappears when she gets upset — that make characters in a book seem like real people. Durdy also works very well, being a type of character that Dickinson likes to write (given his conviction that the mysteries of the present cannot be understood without understanding the past): old, mentally sharp but physically inactive (she is paralyzed from the neck down), with nothing to do but think and remember. The evolution of our viewpoint over the course of the book is also carefully handled: Victor II’s recurrent attempts to present himself as the voice of reason become steadily less credible as the book goes on. And of course the mystery is very well constructed along classical lines: the red herrings are expertly distributed, with McGivan’s seeming alibi being a very clever move to divert attention away from the murderer even though McGivan is the murderer’s first victim. As in all the best classic mysteries, the real killer is obvious in hindsight but somehow not guessed. But the key is that every time Louise digs further — the fact that everything starts with some practical jokes makes it reasonable that a 13-year-old girl should be the closest thing this mystery has to a detective — she uncovers more secrets that point, not towards the killer, but back to her own family. Thus the mystery pulls you through Louise’s arc of discovery — her breakdown (which feels entirely earned) coincides with its climax — even though in the end the two aren’t directly connected. Like most of Dickinson’s mysteries, “King and Joker” pulls off the rare feat of transcending the genre without giving up on its pleasures, and its small-r republican point of view is a pleasant bonus.
January 10, 2020
Y'all know I'm a sucker for alt-history settings and this is a pretty solid one: Eddy (Prince Albert Victor) never died, and ended up marrying his fiance Mary of Teck and ruling himself, and the throne never passed to his brother George V. I appreciate how neatly done it is, and the repercussions play out plausibly.
But that's one piece of what's at play here; in the present (presumably the 70s) there's a serious of increasingly dangerous (and soon deadly) pranks being played on the royal family within the palace; and the story is really framed around the personal growth of the teenaged narrator Princess Louise as she comes to understand the loved ones around her as real, flawed, and sometimes failing people. Louise is a clever and sympathetic narrator who easily carries a murder mystery story that I didn't find terribly engaging.
But that's one piece of what's at play here; in the present (presumably the 70s) there's a serious of increasingly dangerous (and soon deadly) pranks being played on the royal family within the palace; and the story is really framed around the personal growth of the teenaged narrator Princess Louise as she comes to understand the loved ones around her as real, flawed, and sometimes failing people. Louise is a clever and sympathetic narrator who easily carries a murder mystery story that I didn't find terribly engaging.
August 28, 2019
After reading some of Dickinson's books for youth, I just discovered him as an award winning mystery writer. The humor in the early part of the book is fun, but the book soon turns dark and serious. It's an interesting story with solid characters; however, a weakness is that I couldn't find an age for the primary (tween/teen?) character, Louise, a flaw for me considering the way the story unfolds. As with most mysteries I have read lately, the crime is neatly wrapped up in rather abrupt fashion. Mysteries may not be my favorite genre, but I'm willing to give a couple of others a try.
September 27, 2018
This was a really good book. . . I still can’t get over it. I loved Louise’s character: not everyone’s preferred type of a hero but still amazing in her own being, in her depth and perks, in her youthful development. And the King’s cunning and doubtful personality, the alternate line of the royal family which seemed so original and real-felt. I loved how Peter was able to unwrap everyone’s past and make us attached to them in such a short book. I loved his method and style. Just about everything in this book.
I’d definitely recommend it.
I’d definitely recommend it.
January 14, 2023
A very unusual book, a mix of mystery and alternate history with a YA age protagonist, although nothing like current YA. Extremely readable, mostly due to Louise appealing voice (Durdy's sections are wonderful too, in a different), and full of twists. I can't imagine it ever being published these days, it's far too creative.
July 18, 2023
This was a delightful surprise. Picked it at random from Libby due to the title, and its publication date which is a neglected era in my reading history. Funny, sweet, and unusual in many ways which I will leave for others to discover. Particularly enjoyed the exploration of what it might be like to be a member of the royal family and its inmost circle.
May 15, 2022
Not sure why I bought this and it spent a lot of time on the shelves. It turns out to be a fairly interesting mystery about an alternate reality slate of UK Royals and their secret and not so secret affairs. I don't think I'll pick up the series, but it was enjoyable.
April 6, 2018
Those of you nostalgic for all things royal will enjoy this mild alt-fantasy romp through the palace with the adolescent Princess Louise and her dysfunctional but quite nice family.
February 6, 2019
I really love Dickinson’s writing but this wasn’t much of a mystery and it’s a hot mess of stereotypes.
December 27, 2020
This is a novel of kings and princesses that appears to tell a gritty, poignant, and funny reality of royal life. Most interesting!!!
August 3, 2014
I have only read one of Peter Dickenson’s many detective crime novels (thanks to a recent Nancy Pearl recommendation,) and this novel was as immediately distinctive and engaging.
Published in 1976 and set in Buckingham Palace and London of the mid 1970’s, the principal players are not members of the Royal Family as we know them. Rather, the plot involves an alternate Royal Family based on the premise that the Duke of York never reigned as King George V because his brother, Edward Duke of Clarence, did not die as anticipated but went on to reign over England as King Victor I. Thus, the present King is his son, Victor II, a medical doctor as well, and the fun begins with a royal household of his wife, Isabella, a Spanish princess, his vegetarian son, Albert, Prince of Wales, his daughter, Princess Louise, Nonny, his wife’s secretary (ahem), Miss Durdon, the elderly and quite-near-to-death nanny, faithful servants, some rogues, and many surprises.
The novel reflects all that we remember, somewhat nostalgically perhaps, of England’s social classes, adherence to appearance and standards, that old world of the 20th century and before. Yet, England is now in the throes of economic crisis, and Victor II is sensitive to that while maintaining the rituals and traditions expected of his title for the GBP (Great British Public.) While entertaining heads of state, he is still looking for ways that the Royal Family could economize.
This is a unique family adhering to expectations, and Louise, our thirteen year old narrator, articulates, “ ‘Among ourselves’ you could say and do what you liked, a set of relationships that you just knew…Things that if you’d done them elsewhere would have been ‘over the line.’ When you weren’t among yourselves, you were always to a greater or lesser extent ‘putting on a show, wearing your public face.’”
Over the course of the novel Louise discovers family truths and secrets with the help of Durdy or Miss Durdon, the Nanny who has been part of this family, caring for its babies, since the late 1800’s. The beloved Durdy, whom Louise and her father visit frequently throughout the day out of true love and devotion, moves between clarity and a dream state. Her reminiscences reveal much of her own and the family’s history to the reader.
What begin as pranks, perhaps a reaction to the layoffs predicted within the Palace due to the economy, turn quickly to practical jokes and then to far more sinister actions, including murder. As the actions become more ominous, more threatening, Louise and her father believe they are tied somehow to the family secret, which stretches the boundaries of royal life, the extent of which Louise has only recently been told.
If the secret weren’t enough, the parallel struggle for Louise is her wish to remain ordinary, to preserve her sense of self and not allow the work of “princessing” to consume her life, to not become a “princessing machine” despite her recognition of duty and obligation.
The discerning reader will take note of the clues Dickenson provides throughout the novel; a word or phrase here and there caught my attention enough to pull together a theory, but the ending took me by surprise, more unforgiving than I expected.
Published in 1976 and set in Buckingham Palace and London of the mid 1970’s, the principal players are not members of the Royal Family as we know them. Rather, the plot involves an alternate Royal Family based on the premise that the Duke of York never reigned as King George V because his brother, Edward Duke of Clarence, did not die as anticipated but went on to reign over England as King Victor I. Thus, the present King is his son, Victor II, a medical doctor as well, and the fun begins with a royal household of his wife, Isabella, a Spanish princess, his vegetarian son, Albert, Prince of Wales, his daughter, Princess Louise, Nonny, his wife’s secretary (ahem), Miss Durdon, the elderly and quite-near-to-death nanny, faithful servants, some rogues, and many surprises.
The novel reflects all that we remember, somewhat nostalgically perhaps, of England’s social classes, adherence to appearance and standards, that old world of the 20th century and before. Yet, England is now in the throes of economic crisis, and Victor II is sensitive to that while maintaining the rituals and traditions expected of his title for the GBP (Great British Public.) While entertaining heads of state, he is still looking for ways that the Royal Family could economize.
This is a unique family adhering to expectations, and Louise, our thirteen year old narrator, articulates, “ ‘Among ourselves’ you could say and do what you liked, a set of relationships that you just knew…Things that if you’d done them elsewhere would have been ‘over the line.’ When you weren’t among yourselves, you were always to a greater or lesser extent ‘putting on a show, wearing your public face.’”
Over the course of the novel Louise discovers family truths and secrets with the help of Durdy or Miss Durdon, the Nanny who has been part of this family, caring for its babies, since the late 1800’s. The beloved Durdy, whom Louise and her father visit frequently throughout the day out of true love and devotion, moves between clarity and a dream state. Her reminiscences reveal much of her own and the family’s history to the reader.
What begin as pranks, perhaps a reaction to the layoffs predicted within the Palace due to the economy, turn quickly to practical jokes and then to far more sinister actions, including murder. As the actions become more ominous, more threatening, Louise and her father believe they are tied somehow to the family secret, which stretches the boundaries of royal life, the extent of which Louise has only recently been told.
If the secret weren’t enough, the parallel struggle for Louise is her wish to remain ordinary, to preserve her sense of self and not allow the work of “princessing” to consume her life, to not become a “princessing machine” despite her recognition of duty and obligation.
The discerning reader will take note of the clues Dickenson provides throughout the novel; a word or phrase here and there caught my attention enough to pull together a theory, but the ending took me by surprise, more unforgiving than I expected.
July 2, 2009
What do you do if you're an unmarried British royal in a sweet little poly triad in the middle of the last century? King Victor explains how one of his beloveds went about dealing with the need for a wedding. "She had an out-and-out set-to with Churchill about it, because he wanted all the 'Thees' and 'Thous' but Bella insisted on my saying 'you' because that can mean two people as well as one... We had a private service, just the three of us, before the service in the Abbey. I wept like a baby."
This was a fun, light read, with the surprising bonus of zero use of monogamy as a symptom of true love. "My review / What I learned"? I learned that one of the reasons I don't read light books more often is because of the use of monogamy as the default indication of contentment and/or passion. It was thoroughly delightful to experience the Princess' happiness in her parents ("all three of them," she says several times). Cold-hearted gags-at-romance me actually felt sappy at all the sappy romantic bits.
Despite my entire book journal entry focusing on that, it wasn't about being poly at all; that was just the shape of some of the characters. It tried to just be a good mystery, and it was certainly mysterious, exciting, a riddle, scary at bits and all those things a non-mystery reader imagines mysteries are supposed to be.
I hope there are more books like this lurking about to discover.
This was a fun, light read, with the surprising bonus of zero use of monogamy as a symptom of true love. "My review / What I learned"? I learned that one of the reasons I don't read light books more often is because of the use of monogamy as the default indication of contentment and/or passion. It was thoroughly delightful to experience the Princess' happiness in her parents ("all three of them," she says several times). Cold-hearted gags-at-romance me actually felt sappy at all the sappy romantic bits.
Despite my entire book journal entry focusing on that, it wasn't about being poly at all; that was just the shape of some of the characters. It tried to just be a good mystery, and it was certainly mysterious, exciting, a riddle, scary at bits and all those things a non-mystery reader imagines mysteries are supposed to be.
I hope there are more books like this lurking about to discover.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 13, 2013
King & Joker is an alternate universe novel, in which Albert Victor (King Edward VII's oldest son) survived to become King Victor I. In the novel, the king is Albert Victor's grandson, Victor II. The novel focuses on his daughter, thirteen-year-old Louise, without being a young adult novel.
I enjoyed the polygamory (borderline polygamy, with the wedding ceremony details) and the effect it had on Louise. I also liked all the relationships in the book, Victor and Isabella and Nonny, Durdy and Kitten, parents and children, siblings.
The plot itself meandered and twisted; it wasn't entirely clear much of the time, and the solution was a bit of a jolt. The penultimate event with Louise was jarring and seemed out of character, and I didn't care for it.
Readers should be aware that there's period-appropriate racism (Durdy is in her nineties and this takes place in the 1970s, and there are a few other things that would be considered inappropriate nowadays), and there is a sexual assault that's treated lightly.
Overall, a good book, but not one I'd necessarily read again.
I enjoyed the polygamory (borderline polygamy, with the wedding ceremony details) and the effect it had on Louise. I also liked all the relationships in the book, Victor and Isabella and Nonny, Durdy and Kitten, parents and children, siblings.
The plot itself meandered and twisted; it wasn't entirely clear much of the time, and the solution was a bit of a jolt. The penultimate event with Louise was jarring and seemed out of character, and I didn't care for it.
Readers should be aware that there's period-appropriate racism (Durdy is in her nineties and this takes place in the 1970s, and there are a few other things that would be considered inappropriate nowadays), and there is a sexual assault that's treated lightly.
Overall, a good book, but not one I'd necessarily read again.
October 18, 2012
BOTTOM LINE: #1 of 2, Princess Louise, Buckingham Palace, London; cosy amateur sleuth, alternate history/monarchy. Charming 13-yo Princess Louise narrates this tale of practical jokes that lead to murder, set in a British Monarchy that never was. Dickinson’s admiration for The Royals shines through, but there are occasional sharp jabs at the real Royals, especially the then young Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Gentle humour, deliciously sly, and a good plot too. Recommended.
The plotting is very good, the pacing excellent, and everything gets mixed up beautifully: Royal succession, threats and secrets kept for decades, all woven into the tale of the extremely elderly governess who lies dying in The Royal Nursery. As the practical jokes escalate, her memories flesh out the story and keep it from being entirely spoof-y. HRH Louise is a delight, as she grows up from smart child to intelligent young woman in the space of a few months.
The plotting is very good, the pacing excellent, and everything gets mixed up beautifully: Royal succession, threats and secrets kept for decades, all woven into the tale of the extremely elderly governess who lies dying in The Royal Nursery. As the practical jokes escalate, her memories flesh out the story and keep it from being entirely spoof-y. HRH Louise is a delight, as she grows up from smart child to intelligent young woman in the space of a few months.
September 11, 2007
This books imagines that Prince Eddy, engaged to marry the late Queen Mary of England, never died. In fact, he did, and she married his brother, King George, the parents of the current Queen Elizabeth. (I think) It's a good thing they put a pedigree chart in the front, because I couldn't keep all these imaginary people straight and I had to keep referring back to it. I suppose the main reason for writing it like this is that the writer can imagine his own royal family instead of having to deal with the one we've got. But I was rather confused. I think the author should have decided to write either a straight mystery based on real people, one based wholely on imaginary people, or an alternate reality book. Instead it's a mix. The characters were well drawn but the mystery was a little unclear and the whole thing was confusing. Some of the relationships were a little unbelievable too.
August 2, 2012
Here's a different take on royal history, imagining that Prince Albert Victor of Wales did not die of pneumonia in 1892, meaning that it is his line, not that of the man we now know as George V, that makes up Britain's Royal House now.
Against that background, we have a rather average detective story and characters of varying interest. Still, despite some rather long passages where nothing much happens, the tale has enough to hold the interest and the ending is quite neat.
Against that background, we have a rather average detective story and characters of varying interest. Still, despite some rather long passages where nothing much happens, the tale has enough to hold the interest and the ending is quite neat.
December 28, 2008
Set in an England where Prince Edward Victor did not die and ended up with Queen Mary, the royal family is coping with budgetary problems and a practical joker in the palace whose jokes are becoming more serious. Dickinson has a great handle on all his characters and makes this alternative to history seem real.
May 19, 2010
As so often happens with Dickinson's mysteries, I didn't find it particularly mysterious -- I figured out all the secrets long before they were overtly revealed.
As a girl-coming-of-age story set in an alternate Britain with an entertaining imaginary royal family (which makes this alternate history, but the royal family appears to be the only alternate-ness about it) it was an enjoyable read.
As a girl-coming-of-age story set in an alternate Britain with an entertaining imaginary royal family (which makes this alternate history, but the royal family appears to be the only alternate-ness about it) it was an enjoyable read.
July 24, 2011
I enjoyed this much more than the Old English Peep Show which I could barely finished. This is an amusing mystery about the British royal family if circumstances were different and Edward VII's oldest son had lived and obtained the throne. We see the family from a more personal perspective and the story revolves around the Princess Louise. It was an entertaining, easy book to read.
June 10, 2018
Slight mystery that instead looks at the details of what it means to born into royalty and grow up with a public and private face and the idea of service. Also about lies in a family and the benefits and dangers of that, and how parents are imperfect and what it feels like for a child to realize that.
June 24, 2015
This is a weird little book, but in a good way. Very dry, sometimes quite funny, totally British. A fictional, but not improbable Royal Family trying to figure out the source of unpleasant practical jokes in the palace. Some great "flashback"-type narrative sets up the family history.
July 24, 2025
I'd been meaning to reread this since I read Spare and I was absolutely right to do so. (Also, my girlfriend suggested it for reading after The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels which was a hard act to follow.)
October 14, 2011
An interesting mystery set in a fun alternate-history with a different British royal family, and teenage Princess Louise as the primary viewpoint character.
August 27, 2016
I enjoyed most of this, but it's a girl's book: sensitive relationships, etc. Not much interesting literature.
July 10, 2012
My favorite Dickinson book to date. I must find more of his mysteries.
February 4, 2016
Very clever alternative Britain, fairly good mystery.
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