I got Windsor Knot by S. J. Bennett, for free from Netgalley for a fair and honest review

In the first book of a new series.

The morning after a dinner party at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth is shocked to discover that one of her guests has been found murdered in his room, with a rope around his neck.

With the police beginning to suspect her loyal servants, Her Majesty knows they are looking in the wrong place.

For the Queen has been living an extraordinary double life ever since her coronation. Away from the public eye, she has a brilliant knack for solving crimes.

With her household's happiness on the line, her secret must not get out. Can the Queen and her trusted secretary Rozie catch the killer, without getting caught themselves?

I decided to get this from Netgally, after glancing at the Synopsis and seeing that it was set in Windsor Castle, one of the residents of the British Monarch Queen Elizabet II. However after i downloaded the and saw it was the Queen doing the investigation, i thought it was ever going to be really terrible or brilliant.

I am pleased to say that the book was great, firstly you have a royal setting, the Queen running her own private investigation, and an examination of the british ruling class, in a slight comic from.

The best way to describe this book is The Crown, meets Miss Marple and Yes Prime Minister.

The way The Queen was portrayed was done in such a delightful way, The way in which most of her life has been taken up with service and how the people around her, who don’t know her believe, she can not keep up with the modern world.

In particular the Queen's relationship with her Husband the Duke of Edinburgh was shown to be like every marriage, that works, with a bit of humor.

The way the investigation was carried out by the Queen was through the use of her staff both past and present, With the main work being done by Rosie, her personal assistant, doing most of the legwork.

Rosie had only just started working for the Queen and so as she learned about her boss doing not only this investigation but past ones as well, you as the reader learnt as well.

To me the only weakness was the ending , as a reader it seemed to go on longer than it should have in my opinion, I understand as a reader why the writer S.J. Bennett did this, but it could have been done a bit quicker.

Having said that the main plot was really good, i may not have solved the crime but as a reader when the solution was played out at the end, all the clues were there and the answer seemed to me to be in the realm of possibility from them.


So Who Would i recommend this book to? This is simple, if you like cozy mysteries, set in unusual situations, with a different take on the Private Investigator storyline, then S.J. Bennett’s Windsor Knot is the book for you.

I really enjoyed this deceptive novel- whilst using a light hearted premise, that of the Queen being a successful sleuth (with help from her loyal aides), it presented a clever mystery plot. S J Bennett presents the characters of Her Majesty, her staff and the contrast of both the formality and homeliness of life in a royal palace in a wholly believable way (insider knowledge?). I enjoyed getting to know newest aide Rozie and her predecessors very much. I hope this is not the last of the royal sleuths!

I read this book as part of a read along with others from TBC The Book Club. The first part is introducing all the characters but none the way we know them. There are descriptions of Her Majesty the Queen which are truly hilarious. Her personal staff are described as all knowing and incredibly loyal people who have her best interests at heart. However when a visitor is found dead at Windsor Castle, the queen turns detective, enlisting the help of her Assistant Private Secretary.

There were so many characters I lost track of who is who and not helped by the fact that I felt the middle part of the story was incredibly slow and was almost unnecessary as the story didn’t really develop. I found the ending a huge anti climax as although we found out who the killer was, he was completely insignificant in the story.

I thought the beginning of the story was really good but felt that it ran out of steam towards the end.

I must admit that when I first saw this synopsis, I did wonder whether I would find this too far fetched. However after reading and enjoying the first chapters, I quickly ordered the book. The book arrived on Friday and was finished by Saturday evening (helped by the fact my husband went out!).
As a fan of Agatha Christie, and the recent ‘Thursday Murder Club’ by Richard Osman, I’m pleased to say that I did enjoy this amateur detective novel – the murder mystery, the Queen’s own investigation, the humour and the characters created by S.J. Bennett. Rozie quickly finds herself helping the Queen in ways she wasn’t expecting when employed by the royal household, assisted by a very small group of loyal ex-employees.

A five star read for me and I'm already looking forward to book 2

Born and raised in England, I'm slightly addicted to the Royals - the pomp and pageantry of Trooping the Colour, the tradition of counting the 3-second pauses between the Queen's Speech at Christmas, the Cambridges...! It's no wonder that a book featuring the Queen as a crime-solving detective would find its way into my book pile.

S.J. Bennett has got, what I imagine to be, the Queen's personality right down to a T. Her character came across so whimsically that I was definitely picturing and hearing our real Queen's image and voice whilst reading. I could totally visualise her rattling around Windsor with her corgis and riding her horse through the castle grounds, magnifying glass in hand trying to solve the latest crime to grace her historically decorated threshold. S.J. Bennett has done such a brilliant job of capturing and creating this realistic, yet fun portrayal of Elizabeth that I was immediately gripped into the whole world of the novel.

Rozie, HM's Watson sidekick for this novel really intrigued me and brought a vibrancy to the story. For anything that Queenie couldn't investigate or carry out, Rozie was there to fill in the gaps. I liked the references to her heritage and that she was a young, confidant woman against a backdrop of patriarchal figures and other characters. She also gave us an additional insight into what it may be like to work behind the scenes alongside The Firm. I have always been fascinated by this and here it brought an interesting kind of narrative to complement the overall storyline.

The plot in itself was quite cleverly done. Amidst all of the little clues and hints, I still hadn't fully put together exactly 'whodunnit' until right near the end. The breadcrumb trail and character motives are descriptively and gently teased out to keep you guessing throughout the whole multi-layered plot.

Overall, this series starter was such a moreishly addictive read - it's like the book version of The Crown mixed with a little of The Windsors and topped off with a bit of Poirot. I read it from cover to cover in just one weekend. I'm really keen to see this original series develop and my mind is already boggling at what adventures and crime-capers Rozie and HM The Queen are going to solve next!
[Review to be posted on blog 28th October]

Queen Elizabeth II is hosting a dinner party, and everything is going perfectly: the guests, inclusive of Sir David Attenborough and the Archbishop of Canterbury, are enjoying themselves; the entertainment, in the form of young Russian pianist Maksim Brodsky, is exquisite; and the setting, Windsor Castle, is awe-inspiring. So, when Mr Brodsky turns up dead in his room, tied to his wardrobe in a most compromising position the following morning, it rather puts a dampener on things. The MI5 and the Metropolitan Police are brought in to investigate, and ties to Russian intelligence are uncovered that lead back to members of Queen Elizabeth’s own staff.

But the Queen isn’t as readily convinced that the perpetrator is one of her own. Enlisting the help of her private secretary, Rozie, Queen Elizabeth takes on the role of investigator herself, and tries to piece together the puzzle of what happened to Mr Brodsky that fateful night of the dine-and-sleep. As it turns out, Queen Elizabeth is quite the sleuth, and in between public engagements and the preparations for her own ninetieth birthday, she uncovers some things that even the police investigation missed.

When I read the synopsis of this book, I immediately felt drawn to the concept as highly novel and very original. Having a detective story headed up by none other than Queen Elizabeth II herself was something I had never thought I would come across, and I was immediately intrigued as to how it would fare. In certain aspects, it fared exactly as I expected: the book was filled with the charm of the behind-the-scenes activities of the British monarchy, and the story was filled with hallmark imagery that anyone who is familiar with the Royal Family (and, in fact most people who aren’t) would recognise. (I think in particular here of the references to the “spring green” outfit the Queen wore to celebrate her 90th birthday that sparked the #NeonAtNinety trend on social media; or the Queen’s beloved corgis that follow her around her home.)

The writing in this book was also more or less what I expected: with the protagonist being Queen Elizabeth II, the language in the book felt compelled to be slightly more formal, and this it was. Passages told from the Queen’s point of view were definitely written in a way that I imagine her to think – well-articulated and interspersed with concerns about her royal duties. Other characters had a more easily flowing prose, and this subtle change in styles between characters helped to clearly define and develop the characters telling the story.

Where this book excelled in the writing and the anecdotes about royal life, I feel it lacked in plot. The book starts off the morning after the death, when the body is discovered, and then described the previous evening through flashbacks. Personally, I would have dedicated an initial chapter, or even a prologue, to the party of the previous evening, as jumping in after the body had been discovered felt a bit jarring. More than that, I felt that the book almost relegated the murder mystery to a side plot and became more a fictional retelling of the royal activities that led up to significant events in the Queen’s life: for example, her 90th birthday, various horse racing events, or a visit from the Obamas. Understandably, the Queen doesn’t have an awful lot of free time and so Bennett decided not to have her become a super sleuth and neglect her royal duties, but it felt a bit like the “Queen as sleuth” storyline that the book promised was delivered mainly through the Queen taking an arbitrary phone call now and then and then sending her secretary, Rozie, out to do the legwork (and even then, because Rozie has responsibilities as far as the Queen’s diary is concerned, Rozie can only get permission to do this legwork for half a day at a time).

I enjoyed the premise of the book, and I think it is exceedingly original, and unlike any book I have ever read before. However, I think that it suffered from this premise as well: it forced the author to make her plot revolve around royal duties that didn’t further the plot, and ultimately made the book (which isn’t particularly long to start with) drag at times. I’d be interested to see where this series goes in the future, but I hope that future novels are less padded with royal engagements, and slightly more focussed on the Queen’s investigating skills.

Thanks to NetGalley and Zaffre Publishing for the ARC.

There is only one Queen of Crime (Agatha Christie if you don't know) but what if the Queen was involved in solving crime. Well she needs to fill her days somehow between all the papers, visits and family battles surely?

After a small gathering of a select few people, a Russian pianist is found dead in his room in rather strange circumstances. 

As the police, secret services and other government departments descend at Windsor Castle what originally looked like suicide is in fact murder and it needs to be kept to minimum information not just for the public but also for the Queen. She does not need to be bothered with such things. 

But when her servants seem to be targeted as preparators because of their backgrounds or interests, the Queen is bothered and the so called Russian interference seems to be the obvious conclusion. 

Helping the Queen is her new Assistant Private Secretary, a young dynamic former solider called Rozie, who has some very useful skills and had no idea about the Queen's other interests until she realises why her predecessor left her certain instructions. 

However, Elizabeth is a lot more canny than her faithful servants realise and when she can see that the police are heading in the wrong direction, she does in her inimitable way direct them back. Of course she makes it look like it was all their own idea! 

This really is an exuberant take on the cosy mystery genre and has some good research done on it, to understand the workings of the the Royal Family and also the descriptions of Windsor Castle. There are some humorous moments and it had me laughing out loud and what seems like the absurdity of it all but then really do not know what goes on behind palace walls, do we?

Perfect for fans of crime, the Royals it is all just terribly British and l loved it!

Brilliant!

I raced through this book. It is witty and clever and extremely well written.

The idea seems a little preposterous at first but the premise works so well. The Queen of England, ably supported by her newest member of staff, embarks on solving a murder that occurred within Windsor Castle.

The characters are brilliant, the Queen and Prince Phillip are written perfectly and I love the supporting cast. All the fabulous, clever women who help to solve this murder while certain men blunder about!

This book had me chuckling throughout and I look forward to the next!

If you like a cosy little murder mystery this is definitely for you. It was a refreshing and fun read and certainly a change from the heavier crime thrillers I usually read. Who would ever imagine the Queen as a sleuth!

What a wonderfully, atypical premise for a novel, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II as a sleuth.
I’ve always had an interest in the British Royal family, and so ‘A Windsor Knot’ by SJ Bennett seemed an ideal mystery for a change of pace.
‘A Windsor Knot’ is a completely fresh take on the ‘detective duo’ genre as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and her assistant private secretary (APS), Rozie are determined to solve a murder that has taken place within Windsor Castle – a murder which could both the state and peace of the British public.
During a ‘dine and sleep’ event at Windsor Castle (this type of event actually occurs!!, wonder how I can get invited??) , a young Russian musician is found dead and though suicide is initially expected, MI5 soon confirm that murder is suspected. Her Majesty is concerned at the murder occurring within her beloved home and is determined to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Her determination increases when she realises that the security and police services seem to be meandering along the incorrect path in their investigations. With the staff of Windsor under increasing suspicions and the body count increasing, the Queen turns to her APS Rozie for assistance to solve the case. It quickly becomes clear that this is not the first time that the monarch has solved a case, and she has several out friends and employees who will happily help out.
Her approach reminds me a little of Hercule Poirot as she thinks very carefully and considers the words and actions of each person – cautiously recalling events and phrases before acting (or rather, causing Rozie to act).
One of my favourite aspects of the novel was not the actual investigation, but rather the more ‘intimate’ moments where the Queen spent time with her family and staff. It also felt as though the reader had been gifted a brief insight into life at the castle. A thoroughly enjoyable story.

After some recent heavy reading, I wanted something light to read and this was just the ticket. Warm, funny and just such a nice read. There were no overt descriptions of violence or swearing. The idea of Her Majesty as a sort of Agatha Christie was just delightful and, oddly, really endeared her to me, even though I know it's fiction.
I loved the way the writer humanised her without taking away her dignity and formality and the glimpses into life at Windsor was such a treat.
Not usually a royalist but I felt such a rush of fondness for this version of the Queen that I felt quite patriotic.
If you are a fan of M.C Beaton or early Agatha Christie, or even The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennet then this is one for you. Truly wonderful.

I will start by saying that murder mysteries are not normally my cup of tea. I don't normally enjoy them but this one sounded so good, so fun and I loved the idea of the Queen getting involved but it didn't really live up to the premise in my opinion. I found the Queens character to be quite flat and one toned... I just couldn't gel with it and it only solidified why I don't like murder mysteries. Thank you for allowing me to read it so early though. I have no doubt that there will be people who will love this far more than I did. It wasn't terrible, just didn't really capture me.

I really wanted to like this book as I love cosy crime but I found it to be really disappointing. The Queen and Philip are basically just sketches cobbled together from Wikipedia entries and the Daily Mail. Lizzie, the Queen's assistant, has some possibilities as a character but feels a bit forced overall. She seems to exist only to show how stuffy the Queen's old / white / male staff are. Other characters are lazy national stereotypes. The crime and its details are quite unpleasant and the mystery not really 'cosy' in any way. I think the problem is that there are just no characters to care about. The Queen herself doesn't even get to do a big reveal in solving the mystery, she just gently pushes other people into investigating things and lets them put the puzzle together themselves. There were also a lot of sloppy mistakes which were distracting. For example, Northumbria is an ancient kingdom not a modern county. Add to these, some weird Americanisms (the 'morgue', burner phones and people being crippled by medical bills), not to mention just glaring typos like the 'PR' system at the Horse Show (PA = Public Address). I can see how the pitch may have sounded good but the execution is so bad I had to force myself to finish the free copy I'd been given by the publisher. Not recommended.

I wanted to love this much more than I actually did and I’m sad about that because Murder She Wrote is still one of my favourite TV shows. I loved the characterisation of the Queen, and other real life characters. I loved the wit. My problem was I didn’t care for the other main character in the story Rozie who helped the Queen with the investigation. To be honest I wish our Lizzie had just got on with it herself as the parts of the story with Rozie just fell flat for me. Others may like the duo, but after such a strong start to the story, showing the Queen’s wit and charm, I really didn’t need anyone else.

*3.5 stars*

This is a really charming cosy murder mystery and a really solid start to a series about Queen Elizabeth II solving crimes alongside her royal duties. I’m looking forward to carrying on with the series.

I adored this book. I loved the premise and the idea of the queen secretly solving murders alongside her normal duties. It was such a fun take on a murder mystery which appealed to the royalist within me completely. I cannot wait for more in the series.

Alongside being our Monarch for the past 68 years, the Queen has it seems also been putting her M (the Judi Dench incarnation) and Miss Marple skills to good use solving mysteries! This is a hugely enjoyable first outing for HM Windsor, ace detective, and I hope it's the first of many.

I loved this book! It was a fab read and a fantastic murder mystery!
I do like the Queen, I think she’s an amazing woman, and having her in a murder mystery was great fun! Now obviously Her Majesty couldn’t go around like Miss Marple, asking all the important questions of the possible suspects. Instead she was just like Hercule Poirot and used her ‘little grey cells’ on the problem. This was where Rozie, her assistant private secretary stepped in to do the leg work. I liked Rozie a lot and enjoyed watching her become more confident with the different tasks the Queen sent her on.
The actual mystery was very clever and a lot more involved that I expected. I fell for the red herrings, not having a clue who the murderer was when the big reveal came!
I loved all the details about the Queen’s daily life at Windsor, of her love for her family and her horses, and of how much she cared for her staff. Oh yes and I enjoyed the laugh out loud moments provided by Prince Philip! There’s so much more I’d love to say, but it would definitely ruin the plot, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself!
I definitely want to read the next book in the series, and have already been recommending this first book to family and friends.
I highly recommend this book especially if you enjoy cosy mysteries or books connected to the Royal Family.

This was a lot of fun! Imagine the Queen getting up to crime solving antics! I've just read Richard Osman's book about people in a care home solving cold cases and fear that might get the publicity that this book deserves! It's funny, clever and very fresh. Warm and heart-warming too. Ahh yes more of this please!

I love the Royal family and I love a 'whodunnit' so this book was the perfect combination.

The Queen, a secret amateur detective, investigates a murder at Windsor Palace. With her secretary Rozie they try to find out 'whodunnit' because the police are on the wrong lines of investigation.

I adored this book. Lots of laugh out loud moments. Great plotline, great story. Had me hooked until the end. I am useless at working out who did it. I never guess the right one. I'm looking forward to the next in the series