Royal Whodunnits: Tales of Right Royal Murder and Mystery

by Mike Ashley (Editor), Stephen Baxter (Contributor), Peter Tremayne (Contributor)

To follow the successes of Classical Whodunnits and Shakespearean Whodunnits, popular anthologist Mike Ashley has specially commissioned more than a score of new stories from top drawer writers, lead by Stephen Baxter, Peter Tremayne, Margaret Frazer, Richard Lupoff, Susanna Gregory, and Tom Holt, for his latest page-turning anthology. Regal detectives (and victims) in these tales include Mary Queen of Scots, George IV, Edward Duke of Windsor, King John, Robert the Bruce, Princess Anastasia of Russia, Victoria's beloved consort Prince Albert.

The snows of Saint Stephen /​ M.G. Owen
Night's black agents /​ Peter Tremayne
Even kings die /​ Mary Reed &​ Eric Mayer
Accidental death /​ Tom Holt
The White Ship murders /​ Susanna Gregory
Who killed fair Rosamund? /​ Tina &​ Tony Rath
Provenance /​ Liz Holliday
To whom the victory? /​ Mary Monica Pulver
A frail young life /​ Renee Vink
A stone of destiny /​ Jean Davidson
Perfect shadows /​ Edward Marston
The friar's tale /​ Cherith Baldry
Neither pity, love nor fear /​ Margaret Frazer
Happy the man... /​ Amy Myers
Borgia by blood /​ Claire Griffen
The curse of the unborn dead /​ Derek Wilson
Two dead men /​ Paul Barnett
A secret murder /​ Robert Franks
The gaze of the falcon /​ Andrew Lane
The mysterious death of the shadow man /​ John T. Aquino
The day the dogs died /​ Edward D. Hoch
Natural causes /​ Martin Edwards
The modern Cyrano /​ Stephen Baxter
News from New Providence /​ Richard A. Lupoff
Woman in a wheelchair /​ Morgan Llwelyn.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Historical Mystery, Anthologies, Crime

434 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is the author and editor of over sixty books that in total have sold over a million copies worldwide. He lives in Chatham, Kent.

Reviews

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kudos to Mike Ashley. I've read maybe a dozen of his anthologies and I don't think there's been one yet that was garbage. Perhaps none are also AMAZING or best thing ever, but there's a good steady quality about each collection he puts out. A mix of famous writers and up and comers, often interesting foreign authors, and I have been introduced to so many great mystery and historical fiction writers through his collections.

This one is another entertaining contender, that nicely goes in chronological order, starting with Good King Wenceslas murder in a 929AD Prague still inhabited by pagans all the way to a strong entry involving Anastasia. The span of a thousand years is covered pretty comprehesively: Macbeth, Chaucer, Cesar Borgia, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, the Duke of Windsor all try their hand at sleuthing. The collection is mostly centered around Great Britain, but there are a few stories set elsewhere.

[Barb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of fictional short stories about mysterious royal deaths. The various authors started with the factual mystery and created fictionalized accounts of how these deaths may have occurred. Many of the stories were very good, but the book overall was very uneven, some of the authors were simply better than others and some of the stories I, frankly, had to skip altogether after a few pages. One of the things I did like about reading this collection of short stories is that I found new authors to search on Goodreads! I'm now working my way through novels by Peter Tremayne and Edward Marston whose stories really stood out in this collection.

[Joanna McDarby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, like the other anthologies in this series it was an assortment of authors from the reliable to the new (for me). None of the stories were bad, some of them were quite ingenious. However if you love a particular author pleas be aware that their writing style of short stories doesn't always mimic their writing of novels.

[Stevie Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag, like a lot of anthologies, but none of the stories were bad as such. A couple of the good ones were very good indeed.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the White Ship disaster.