The Royal Box is a murder mystery with an epilogue that seems added to let the story end on a upbeat note.
Frances Parkinson Keyes provides a cast of characters in order of appearance. The book jacket provides an account of the love affair in 1926 that led to the murder-by-cyanide in 1951. The fact that both those reader aids were thought necessary in a work of popular fiction shows how complicated the novel is.
The poisoned man is Baldwin Castle, newly appointed ambassador to an oil-rich Middle Eastern nation. Years before, after being jilted by an English aristocrat, he’d had an affair with actress Janice Lester.
He left her pregnant.
When Castle and his new, second wife pass through London, they are entertained with a theater party in the Royal Box at the theater where Janice Lester is starring.
The guests include the woman who Castle thought jilted him; the ambassador of the country to which Castle has been assigned; Janice, her husband, and their adopted son who is really Castle’s and Janice’s son.
A dry-as-dust policeman figures out who done it.
And Keyes makes sure everyone’s life ends more happily than Baldwin Castle’s did.
The Royal Box By Frances Parkinson Keyes New York: Julian Messner, 1954 303 pages 1954 bestseller #4 My grade: C© 2014 Linda Gorton Aragoni
Great Penformances 