Princess Elizabeth's Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal

I read this on Saturday.  I enjoyed it very much.  I'm struggling to figure out which elements made me enjoy the experience.  I find myself wondering if I'm stuck in a Downton Abbey mindset:  when, for instance, Maggie Hope is roundly rebuked for not dressing for dinner, I think, "Hmm.. that's interesting .. dressing for dinner is still important in 1941."

I wonder if the quality that I enjoy is that it doesn't seem too real, and it doesn't seem too frightening. I know from reading the acknowledgments that MacNeal did some research, especially in reading the memoir of the real-life governess who cared for the royal princesses in Windsor Castle.  Maggie, despite her disappointment at spy school, is someone who is surprising lucky, competent and capable.  She always comes out on top!

I knew from reading reviews that at least one critic thought that the second book in the Maggie Hope series was not as strong as the first; I can't say that I perceived much difference.  In both books, the mystery is, who can be trusted?  And while I was much less surprised by the big reveal in the second novel, I did not predict all the twists and turns.  It may be that the guilty parties were too obviously signaled by the author -- I'm not sure.

As the novel opens, Maggie is excited -- but exhausted -- to be at spy school in Scotland.  Sadly, her physical strength is just not great enough, and she is in danger of failing to pass the physical strength and endurance tests.  At the same time, there's a murder at Claridge's Hotel that suggests not only that there may be a spy or spy network at Windsor Castle, but that there may be a connection to the spy at Bletchley Park that Edmund Hope, Maggie's father, has been working undercover to try to discover.

Frain, the head of MI-5, pulls Maggie out of spy school to pose as a math tutor to the teenage Princess Elizabeth, who is living, with her sister Margaret, at Windsor Castle.  The Luftwaffe bombings have made London unsafe for them.  Maggie's job is to discreetly keep her eyes and ears open while avoiding any suspicion.  This is the perfect job for Maggie, who is a talented mathematician who once aspired to attend MIT.

Of course, on her first night, Maggie is roundly criticized for not dressing for dinner.  She begins to meet the many folks working at Windsor Castle -- the librarian, the ladies-in-waiting, the governess, the cook, the falconer .. the list goes on and on.

I think I appreciated the details like knowing that the Royal Mews is located on top of the castle and that that is where the falcons are kept.

Maggie saves the day, as usual, but this time with a big assist from a stout-hearted and enterprising Princess Elizabeth.

In the next book,  His Majesty's Hope, Maggie is dropped into France, and the story begins in Germany.  Stay tuned!