The Westminster Intrigue

by Tracy Grant

Overview

Autumn 1820. From Mayfair to Covent Garden to Seven Dials, London is in an uproar over George IV's (the former prince regent) attempts to divorce his wife Queen Caroline. And nowhere is the crisis more intense than in Westminster where the royal divorce is playing out in the House of Lords.

In this tense atmosphere, former spies Malcolm and Mélanie Rannoch go on an undercover mission in a brothel that leads to a brawl--and the murder of the man they were tracking. The victim, Captain James Blayney, was selling the memoirs of a notorious courtesan, whose lovers may include Napoleon Bonaparte, the Duke of Wellington, and key noblemen involved in the royal divorce trial. The missing memoirs may also hold crucial information about the Elsinore League, the powerful organization the Rannochs have been battling for years.

As revelations mount, Malcolm and Mélanie uncover the secrets of some of the most powerful people in Europe. The future of the British monarchy hangs in the balance. But as the Rannochs unravel the clues in the memoirs, they realize that the consequences for the royal family may be nothing compared to the consequences for their own...



Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641971713
Publisher:	Nancy Yost Literary Agency, Inc
Publication date:	05/19/2021
Series:	Rannoch Fraser Mysteries , #23
Edition description:	Is ed.
Pages:	492
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.99(d)

About the Author

Tracy (Teresa) Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting conceptions of honor in late fifteenth century England. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her young daughter and three cats. In addition to writing, Tracy works for the Merola Opera Program, a professional training program for opera singers, pianists, and stage directors. Her real life heroine is her daughter Mélanie, who is very cooperative about Mummy's writing. Tracy is currently at work on her next historical mystery chronicling the espionage adventures of Regency-era spy couple Malcolm and Mélanie Suzanne Rannoch. That's the short version of my bio. The longer version is that I've been making up stories as long as I can remember and writing them down since third grade when we were assigned writing a story in class and I realized I had a wealth of characters and plots inside my head. My mother, a social psychologist (as was my father), loved books and read out loud to me a great deal. We also went to the movies a lot as a family, particularly old movies. When I was six, we saw the Laurence Olivier-Greer Garson "Pride and Prejudice". I loved it and immediately wanted to read the book (or rather have it read to me). My mom said "I'm not sure you'll like it, but we can try". I thought it was wonderful--to me, at that age, it was a story about girls (older than me but young enough that I could identify with them) dealing with their sisters and parents, growing up, falling in love. (Every time I reread "Pride and Prejudice" I get different things from it, but I was totally hooked at the age of six). Georgette Heyer's novels (which my mom also read aloud to me) cemented by love of the Regency era. My family also went to Shakespeare plays a great deal from when I was quite young. I work Shakespeare parallels and quotes into my books whenever I can, and I get a lot of inspiration from the three trips a year my own daughter and I take to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Other influences on me as a writer range include Dorothy Dunnett, Dorothy Sayers, Tom Stoppard, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and The X-Files. It's hard as a writer and a mom to find time to read, but I try never to miss a new book by Lauren Willig, Deborah Crombie, C.S. Harris, Tasha Alexander, and Deanna Raybourn.