A Murder at Balmoral - Softcover

McGeorge, Chris

 
9780593544136: A Murder at Balmoral
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593544137 ISBN 13: 9780593544136
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

The Crown meets Clue in this delightful locked-room mystery, sure to charm Agatha Christie fans and keep readers guessing to the end.

The king is dead. The killer is in the family. Solving this murder will be a royal pain.

The royal family has gathered at their Scottish retreat, Balmoral Castle, for a traditional Christmas. As a blizzard gathers outside and a delicious dinner is prepared, the family circles up for a holiday toast. King Eric has something momentous to say—in fact, he is about to name his successor. But as he raises a glass of his favorite whiskey, he drops dead.
 
The king has been poisoned, someone in the family must have done it, and each one of them had opportunity and motive. Eric’s beloved head chef, Jonathan, must now play detective. Why would one of the king's own family members want to kill him, and how did they do it? What happens in the castle usually stays in the castle, but this secret might be too big for these battlements. Jon is determined to expose the truth, even if it puts him in a killer’s crosshairs—and shakes the entire monarchy to its core.
 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

CHRIS MCGEORGE is the author of Guess Who?, Now You See Me, Inside Out, and Half-Past Tomorrow. He has an MA in Creative Writing (Crime/Thriller) at City University London. 

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Prologue
 
King Eric used to tell us a fable about a common family who went to see the lions at London Zoo. It was a narrative of his own creation and he was always very proud to share it. It was a fable crafted to inspire, to encourage deep thought, to allude and tantalise a hidden deeper well of meaning, as many fables were. We came to fear the fable whenever it was regaled, but not for any reason that King Eric intended. The fable was chiselled into all of us, as commandments into stone, but still it would come to assault our ears and prod at our hearts. Every time the King’s delivery would become grander - a simple recounting becoming an unfurling parchment, turning into costumes to be worn, transforming into a show of which we increasingly had to be a part. He meant it to inspire, but the truth was that whenever it revealed itself, we just desired it to be over – any "deeper well of meaning" circumvented, any feelings of thought or inspiration usurped by boredom and apathy.

However, we let the King tell it.

He did like it so.

A common family one day decided to go to London Zoo, with a particular desire to see the lions residing there. They woke up early. They rode the train into the city – all morning it took them. When they finally arrived at the great gates of the zoo, they rushed to the lion exhibit along with all the other patrons to find a great enclosure encased in a thick layer of protective glass. Inside, the lions were woken from their slumber and paraded out in front of the expectant crowd. The children of this hypothetical family squealed with glee at seeing these great beasts. The crowd of people clapped and cheered as these majestic creatures feasted upon whatever was on the menu that day.

There the narrative would end, revealing itself to be not much of a narrative at all. We were not masters of the craft, but we knew that there should have been some kind of denouement, some kind of rise and fall and rise again until the inevitable full stop. But no, for this was a fable, and once it was done Eric would ask a question: Who or what was the most important in the story?

Some of us would say the lions, seeing as they were the entities inspiring joy and offering some respite from the family’s oh so dull life. Some of us would say the family, as they were making the world go round, and really, if the lions had any sense they would understand that they were merely passengers in this existence and they should delight in offering others enjoyment. Some of us would try to be smart, seeing other options – the zoo workers, for instance, who prodded the lions from sleep so the family could view them? Or, further afield, the explorers who brought the lions to London in the first place? How about the manufacturers of the train which carried the family to London to enjoy such a spectacle? But no matter how hard we tried, not even one of us got the right answer. King Eric would shake his head time and time again, resolving to tell the fable again another day.

The story has not been told today – his favourite day of the year. Christmas Day. We are all in the drawing room, after our dinner, and the time for the tale may have passed, but Eric will still find a way to fill our ears with his words. His famous post-dinner speech is looming – but this speech brings promise. A promise of change.

The King will say a name.

Just one.

I wonder what happens if my name leaves his lips. Although I know it won’t. A life of even more restriction, but a life as a God. Yes, I would be a monarch – the most important person in the country. To be royal is to be seen. We are the lions, after all. Maybe one cannot know the answer to King Eric’s fable until it is too late.

Eric takes a long drink of whiskey. He starts talking. "It is an honour to be able to spend time with this family of mine on…" But his voice starts to crack, his face starts to go an odd shade of puce, and his hands go to his throat – the glass of whiskey bouncing off the lush shag. Eric collapses violently over the table in front of him, as we scream and cry and mutter in confusion, wondering if this is part of the speech.

The chef rushes over in a breathy panic to confirm what we all, deep down, already know.

King Eric is dead.

Hardly surprising, considering I poisoned the whiskey.

Now I just have to get away with it.



Ten Hours Earlier…


I
A Modest Breakfast
 
Whenever one desires the attention of those beyond a door, one cannot go wrong with three sharp knocks. No more, no less. Two knocks might be misconstrued, while four knocks seem needlessly excessive. This was the mantra of Jonathan Alleyne, the King's private chef, and it did not change even at five o'clock in the morning in the echoey halls of Balmoral Castle.

Balmoral Castle, an illustrious fortress of a country residence standing in the remote Highlands of Scotland, came into the possession of the monarchy when it was purchased by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in the mid-1800s. Queen Victoria loved cold, wet weather, and Balmoral stood in maybe the coldest and wettest locale in the British Isles. Conditions were positively dreary at most times of the year, with whipping winds and constant rain. Locals would refer to the rain as 'rude' whenever it came, so ferocious that it would often feel as though it were piercing them through. It hardly seemed like a place for a Royal, but Victoria and Albert were happy with their purchase. When the original castle proved too small, it was entirely rebuilt to their specifications - further proving they bought mostly for the location.

Balmoral now stood as the summer home of the current monarch, King Eric, and his family - summer being the only time of year where the sun would grace the land with its presence. However, if one were to look outside the castle windows at that moment, one might have been forgiven for thinking the concept of summer was a figment of some collective imagination. A tremendous blizzard was laying waste to the greater part of the United Kingdom, surprising meteorologists somewhat and grinding the gears of a semifunctional society to a halt. The castle, much like the country, was under siege, and Jon could hear the wind whistling around them, threatening to break in and bring the snow with it. It would never happen - Balmoral had stood against worse and would once again. The weather was often ferocious here. The River Dee, which ran through the grounds, regularly burst its banks, and the castle had faced hurricanes, world wars, and the destructive passage of time. Balmoral was still standing, and it was hard to imagine a world where one day it would not be.

The blizzard had started almost exactly one hour after everyone had left. The mass exodus of staff from Balmoral was truly something to behold, as if the workers of the castle had seen what was to come and fled. Jon's army of chefs, having stayed until the bitter end helping him prepare, filed out of the kitchen trying to mask the apprehension that their commander might not be able to complete his mammoth task alone. Jon could not blame them - he hardly believed it possible himself.

These doubts now resided in the bags under Jon's eyes, and in his shortness of breath, and on the slick layer of cold sweat resting upon his skin, like dew on a morning lawn. As it always seemed to do on important nights, sleep had eluded him. He had tossed and turned, involuntarily reciting the list of completed chores in his mind, plagued by some phantom worry that he had forgotten something terribly important. Finally, he did find a pocket of that desired thing one usually found in scenarios such as this - something akin to rest, but never akin...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593544137
ISBN 13 
9780593544136
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
384
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchbär
info@buchbaer.de

Weberstr. 67
Osnabrück
49084
Deutschland

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