Maggie Hope has always believed women can do anything. Raised by a no-nonsense spinster aunt who taught at Wellesley College, Maggie has used her wits and her mathematical skills to great effect during World War II. First working (and solving mysteries) as Prime Minister Winston Churchill's secretary, then protecting the Royal Family, Maggie is now a highly trained agent for Britain's Special Operations Executive office. In her sixth Maggie Hope novel, The Queen's Accomplice, Susan Elia MacNeal puts Maggie on a case very close to home.
Returning to London after an assignment in Washington, D.C. (Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante), Maggie takes a desk job while waiting for her German half sister, Elise, to be extradited from Berlin. Soon she gets pulled onto a gruesome Scotland Yard case: a Jack-the-Ripper copycat serial killer targeting young professional women--specifically those associated with the British intelligence service. Working alongside a skeptical police inspector, Maggie must use her analytical skills and her gut instinct to pinpoint the killer before she becomes his next victim.
MacNeal brings back many familiar series characters, including Maggie's friend David and her former flatmates Sarah and Charlotte. Maggie struggles against harassment and condescension in the workplace, which feels realistic but becomes heavy-handed at times. Readers with sensitive stomachs should skim the descriptions of Jack-not-the-Ripper's victims, but Maggie's solution to the case is both plausible and elegant. Like all MacNeal's novels, this one ends on a cliffhanger that will leave readers eagerly awaiting Maggie's next adventure. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams