Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
Queen Elizabeth II is feeling her age and remembers a time
when the weight of the world wasn’t as burdensome—holidays on the former royal
yacht, now moored in Edinburgh. By a chain of unlikely events, she finds
herself on a train to Scotland to visit the yacht and her staff has discovered
she’s missing. But Rajiv Laroia, an unpublished poet clerking at the local cheese shop around the corner
from Buckingham Palace recognizes her, and follows her on to the train.
When The Queen is discovered missing, members of the staff
join forces to discover her whereabouts and return her to the palace. The
Queen’s senior dresser, Shirley MacDonald, is nearing retirement with some
trepidation, and wonders where she will live when pensioned off. William de
Morgan, formerly Bill Morgan of a rough industrial city, loves everything
royal, and takes his position as butler seriously. Lady Anne Bevil, a
lady-in-waiting, widowed and estranged from her only child, is impoverished
nobility, her share of the family fortune lost by her late husband. Major Luke
Thomason, an equerry, is one of the younger members of the staff, and still new
to his position. Stable worker Becky, who prefers animals to people, is the
last person to have seen The Queen
.
A charming, funny story—a first novel from an author
well-known for his nonfiction. If you enjoy fiction about royals, try “Di and
I,” by Peter Lefcourt. Written before her death, the story tells how Di falls
for an American tabloid reporter and escapes with the boys to California, where
she begins a happy life as a McDonald’s franchisee. If only.
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