Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | King and Joker | 1976 | Peter Dickinson | Buy |
| 2 | Skeleton-In-Waiting | 1989 | Peter Dickinson | Buy |
Peter Dickinson’s Princess Louise mysteries are set in an alternate version of Britain where the royal family has a different lineage. In King and Joker (1976), teenage Princess Louise attends Holland Park Comprehensive and her father, the King, trained as a doctor rather than entering the military. The plot begins with a series of practical jokes inside the palace that start out funny but grow increasingly menacing, eventually leading to a body discovered on the throne of England.
The second book, Skeleton-In-Waiting (1989), picks up with Louise as an adult and brings another mystery into the royal household. Dickinson was known for setting his crime novels in unusual milieus, and the Princess Louise books are among his most inventive. King and Joker appears on multiple lists of the best mysteries of the twentieth century. The series combines the closed-world puzzle of a classic English mystery with Dickinson’s sharp observations about class and privilege.