Her Majesty the Queen Investigates Books In Order

Publication Order of Her Majesty the Queen Investigates Books

Her Majesty the Queen Investigates (Series by S.J. Bennett)
Author SJ Bennett writes the “Her Majesty the Queen Investigates” series of mystery novels.

Bennett feels the Queen has lived through much more interesting times than anybody else that is alive. She is not always in control of events, however she does try her very best. She walks this fine line between extreme frustration and extreme comfort which Bennett has always been fascinated by.

One day Bennett realized that, if the Queen wanted to be, she would truly make a fantastic detective. Since the spotlight is always on her, she has to see things that others do not see. She has got access to any expert that she wants, and a deep understanding of her world of palaces and politics. But she has to never be seen to interfere, so she’d have to conduct her investigations behind the scenes, in secret. And so this series was born.

She had already been planning to write an adult detective story, and drove through the heart of England to get going further on it, and had the idea for Queen Elizabeth II as a crime solver instead, and just as soon as it came to her, it would not let her go. It was prompted by thinking about this one scene in the second series of “The Crown”, when the Queen misplaces a soldier on a model battlefield.

It was just a small action, yet Bennett knew that was something the Queen would never do, because the Queen is military history expert, and she’d recognize this battle. She would also know that it was bad manners to pick a soldier up without asking.

Bennett grew up with model soldiers on the battlefields. She felt she knew the Queen so very well, knew what she cared about and how she thought, and how knowledgeable she was in various fields. And she really wanted to write about her a lot all of a sudden.

This premise stuck through her breast cancer diagnosis at the end of 2018 and following recovery. Once the radiotherapy was finished, she wrote “The Windsor Knot” in a rush of creativity in the summer of 2019.

Then, she spent the lockdown of 2020 writing the second book, which is set during the second half of 2016. she’d finish each and every writing day in her shed at the bottom of the garden, wondering about which world she had made up and which was real.

During her dad’s army career, he met the Queen many times, so Bennett felt she had a personal insight into what she is really like behind the scenes.

Bennett does not actually think the Queen secretly solves crimes in her spare time, however if she did, Bennett likes to imagine she’d do it like this, with diplomacy, shrewd intelligence, and the wisdom that is borne from experience.

“The Windsor Knot” is the first novel in the “Her Majesty the Queen Investigates” series and was released in 2020. It is early spring in 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle ahead of celebrations for her 90th birthday. However the preparations get interrupted by the untimely and shocking death of one of the guests in one of the Castle’s bedrooms. The scene leads some to think the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a poorly tied knot leads MI5 to start suspecting foul play. The start questioning the most loyal of Household servants, Her Majesty knows that they are looking in the wrong place.

This is because the Queen has been living quite an extraordinary double life ever since her teen years as “Lilibet”. Unbeknownst to her closest advisers and friends and out of the public eye, she has a most brilliant ability for solving crimes. With help from Rozie Oshodi, her Assistant Private Secretary and a British Nigerian officer that was recently appointed to the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen starts discreetly making some inquiries. While carrying out her royal duties with her typical aplomb, nobody in the Royal Household, the public, or the government even knows that the resolute Elizabeth will not hesitate to use her quick mind, keen eye, and steady nerve to bring this killer to justice.

“A Three Dog Problem” is the second novel in the “Her Majesty the Queen Investigates” series and was released in 2021. At Buckingham Palace, the fall of 2016 presages some uncertain times. The Queen has to deal with a new female prime minister, fallout from the Brexit referendum, and a tumultuous election in America. Yet these prove to be the very least of her worries when one staff member is discovered dead next to the palace swimming pool. Could it truly be the result of some tragic accident, like the cops believe, or is there something much more sinister happening?

Rozie Oshodi, meanwhile, is on the trail of a favorite painting which used to hang just outside of the Queen’s bedroom and the Royal Navy seems to have misappropriated. And a sequence of disturbing anonymous have started circulating through the palace. The Queen’s courtiers believe they have got it all ‘under control’, however Her Majesty is not that sure. After all, even though the public and staff might not be aware, she is the cleverest sleuth among them. It takes a Queen’s eye sometimes to see connections where nobody else is able to.

“Murder Most Royal” is the third novel in the “Her Majesty the Queen Investigates” series and was released in 2022. Christmas at Sandringham is about to be murder.

A bag of drugs and a human hand are discovered washed up on a beach right next to the Queen’s estate and Sandringham. The Queen identifies Edward St. Cyr, the seventy-year-old victim, from the signet ring he was wearing. However the search for his murderer isn’t all that straightforward. Suspects include an aristocrat neighbor, the Queen’s horse groom, and a shady land agent, not to mention the victim’s many relations and cousins.

The investigation leads the Queen, and Rozie (her trusted assistant) to this local pigeon racing club, on back to London, and to the moated and ancient Godwick Hall. However how do the seemingly disparate pieces of this puzzle even fit together? And who could possibly be the next victim?