CHASE ROYAL

by Donald Seaman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 29, 1981

The IRA plans to kidnap Queen Victoria--in a snappy period melodrama that's far fresher than Seaman's 20th-century tales (The Committee, The Duel, etc.). Disturbingly pretty, very efficient suffragette Eileen Connolly--author of The Wild Flowers of New England and a Maine protÉgÉe of Harriet Beecher Stowe--fearlessly agrees to aid IRA Major Scan Donovan when he approaches her in 1867 about a ruse to free Ireland from English rule. Donovan, you see, has discovered that when the widow Queen visits Scotland's Balmoral Castle, she slips off for a week alone (with her perhaps-lover John Brown) to private shooting lodges or remote country inns; he plans to kidnap her during this unguarded period, transport her to America by fast steamer, and hold her for the ransom of Ireland's freedom. Eileen's role? She'll gain the Queen's confidence--by becoming her ghost-writer. (Victoria has already read Wild Flowers three times.) So, while Eileen wins the Queen over at tea, IRA guerrillas are setting off new-fangled time-bombs around London to distract Scotland Yard from the proposed snatch in the Highlands. And, when it looks as if Disraeli has induced Victoria not to leave London, Donovan enlists famous medium Daniel Dunglass Home to put on a sÉance in which the late Prince Albert summons Vicky to Scotland. The Queen goes; she and Brown are kidnapped after Eileen drugs their whiskey; but the Yard scotches the plot. . . though not before Eileen and Donovan are aboard a steamer for the States. With charming Victoriana, mediumism, police work, the IRA, and a neat final twist--pleasant folderol indeed.

Pub Date: Jan. 29, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION