Oh! Where are Bloody Mary's earrings?

by Robert Player

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060133538
• Release Date: January 1972
• Publisher: Harper & Row
• Length: 215 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

cute and charming and interesting

This is a cute little comic novel about a pair of very valuable earrings that have disappeared. Or have they? They started out as gifts from Philip of Spain to Bloody Mary. Later, they ended up on the Tudor Tiara (kept with the other Crown Jewels in the Tower) designed by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. There are some great scenes of royal protocol in Windsor Castle. We get lots of description detailing the rooms and furniture and meals and art objects. Prince Bertie becomes a central character, since he has money troubles and would like to pawn the earrings to a Rothschild, if only he could be assured the earrings are real, which they apparently aren't. Queen Victoria appears with all of her flaws and seems to know more than she lets on to her staff. I enjoyed trying to figure out who might have replaced the real diamonds with good paste copies, but there was no way for me to anticipate the truth revealed in the final chapter. A lot of people covet these valuable diamonds, so there are a lot of suspects. The ending is very satisfying. This is a funny novel with lots of historical detail. There's even a bibliography, which one usually doesn't find with comic historical fiction. My only trouble was with a couple of passages written in lower-class London dialect that I had trouble deciphering. This would make a cute Masterpiece Theatre miniseries. I can fully recommend it if you want some easy reading for pure diversion.