The Queen's Secret

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

Imagine the possibilities. Suppose that a beloved English Queen, Mary III, is attempting to cope with the delicate problem of the heiress presumptive, Princess Victoria, soon to celebrate her coming-of-age, and determined to marry a man most unlike the consort the GBP (Great British Public) will expect her to choose. Jeremy Walsh is not only American, he is Polish-American, divorced, the father of a small child, and a Catholic. Although he loves the princess, he has no intention of giving up his career in journalism to follow two paces behind a royal wife. And should Victoria decide to renounce her claim to the Crown, it will fall to a disgraceful, feckless alcoholic whose behaviour is likely to bring the oldest monarchy in the world to a sad and sorry end.

The Queen, wrestling with these knotty problems, is suddenly faced with another threat; more immediate and more traumatic. There is an intruder in her bedroom, in the dead of night: and she is alone.

Not so impossible as it sounds ... on July 9, 1982, an intruder did make his way, unimpeded, into the bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II. Her Majesty escaped the terrifying encounter unharmed — but suppose the intruder had been a man of another stripe? Suppose he had come with intent to do her harm?

Crises of all sorts are looming; both Parliamentary and personal, for the royals and for Britain. A fascinating foray into the world of “what if” unresolved until the last page is turned.