M, King's Bodyguard

May 1, 2021
M is William Melville, the head of Britain's Special Branch, with special duties as Queen Victoria's bodyguard. But as the book opens, Victoria is on her deathbed. Melville will be responsible for security at her funeral, whose attendees will include all the crowned heads of Europe. If that isn't a big enough responsibility, Melville learns that a plot is afoot to assassinate the queen's grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, at the event. Aided by his German counterpart, Gustav Steinhauser, Melville hunts for an anarchist who wants to incite violence, cause destruction, and perhaps even start a world war. Based on real people and real events, the story is both tense and methodical in equal measure as Melville follows frustratingly opaque clues as the clock ticks down to the funeral. Leonard delivers a crisp procedural elevated by intriguing characters on both sides of the law. A final twist no doubt leads into a sequel. Pair this with Will Thomas' Dance with Death (2021), also set in Victorian England and concerning an assassination plot timed to a royal wedding.

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May 17, 2021
An assassination plot drives this suspenseful historical thriller from Leonard (the Crusher trilogy). In 1901, Queen Victoria’s grandson Kaiser Wilhelm arrives in England shortly before her death. Wilhelm is slated to take part in the funeral procession in London, along with the new British monarch, Edward VII, and other dignitaries. Det. Chief Supt. William Melville, the real-life head of England’s Special Branch, who’s considered “Europe’s most feared policeman” for his strenuous efforts to protect his country, gets a tip about a plot to kill the Kaiser during the procession and labors desperately to foil it. He’s aided by Wilhelm’s bodyguard, Gustav Steinhauer, who agrees to keep the danger from his charge, but whose true allegiances are uncertain. Melville must also maneuver around his superior, Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson, who achieved his rank from political connections and is jealous of Melville’s skills. After some of his best men are killed, Melville suspects a leak. Leonard makes his lead sympathetic without glossing over the brutality Melville employs to do his job. Fans of The Day of the Jackal will be pleased. Agent: Valerie Hoskins, Valerie Hoskins Assoc. (U.K.).

May 15, 2021
In 1901, as the crowned heads of Europe arrive in London for Queen Victoria's funeral, a Scotland Yard detective assigned to protect the new king, Edward VII, must outwit a foreign assassin whose target may in fact be Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. This lively and assured historical drama opens as the reign of "tiny, and shrewd" Queen Victoria is replaced by that of her libidinous son, Albert, aka Edward VII, whose bodyguard, William Melville, is the novel's world-weary narrator. "A Catholic peasant promoted far above his station," as he jokingly puts it, Melville has risen to Detective Chief Superintendent "through tenacity, low cunning and [his] own clumping fists." Irish by birth and suspicious by nature, he knows that the imminent royal funeral procession, as it winds through London, will become, "for terrorists...one long shooting gallery, with every prize a jackpot." European anarchists are Melville's main suspects ("how I despised these fanatics"), and, sure enough, villainous zealots promptly materialize, leading Melville on a merry chase, though he quickly sniffs out the existence of a murderous plot far more labyrinthine than one prompted by pure ideology. "Politics is a stately dance with poisoned daggers," he observes, as he begins to doubt even his German sidekick, Gustav Steinhauer, who is the kaiser's master spy and therefore on the right side. Or is he? Both Melville and Steinhauer, along with many other characters, are based on historical personages, and their portraits--along with that of stinking, foggy London--are finely drawn. The narrative pace never flags, and even the obligatory scenes of shootouts, explosions, and hurtling locomotives are refreshingly vivid. The novel's quieter moments are, however, its best, and none is better than its final twist. "Let's just say I work with certain people who share your concerns about developments on the Continent," an aristocratic stranger says, inviting Melville for a chat at his club. "We could use a man of your experience." So the next installment has surely begun. A briskly paced, richly atmospheric historical thriller.

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