Salacious, star-studded sequel simply so-so

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/06/2023 (1225 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s supposed to be quite cutesy when spunky heroine Priscilla Tempest wakes up horribly hungover the morning after the murder and is surprised to find Pierre Trudeau beside her in the bed.

She can’t remember how it happened, knows only that she got drunk the night before, too drunk to recollect anything she’d done.

And here she is in 1968 in the hotel suite of Canada’s newly elected prime minister, in the ultra-exclusive Savoy in London, where she works as the press officer.

This, readers will recall, is the prime minister who famously declared the government had no place in the bedroom, where consenting adults could do whatever they wished. Consenting adults, he specified.

In 2023, we might view it a certain way if a powerful man has sex with a much younger woman in a vulnerably vast imbalance of power and who was way too drunk to give consent.

Not that authors Ron Base and Prudence Emery seem to be implying anything about Trudeau in this sequel to their delightfully entertaining Death at the Savoy — consent or lack of it just doesn’t seem to occur to them.

It gets complicated in a hurry when one of the hotel’s show dancers is found murdered. Turns out Trudeau had wooed her on a previous trip to London and had been eager to renew, um, acquaintances. But what if Scotland Yard wants to talk to the PM, and Priscilla is his alibi?

Oh dear.

Death at the Savoy gave us intrepid young Canadian Priscilla Tempest sleuthing a murder investigation at the august and stuffy luxury hotel, a few famous cameos, a bit of risqué behaviour. It was a hoot.

This time the murder is secondary to the famous names, and the salaciousness takes over the plot for the sake of salaciousness.

Hardly has the body been taken to the morgue when Priscilla goes home to find Trudeau inside her place, bearing wine and cheese, claiming she’d given him her address and a key, though again she was too drunk to remember having done anything of the sort. She doesn’t really want to, but soon, they’re in bed.

Prime suspect in the murder is real-person David Merrick, a.k.a. The Abominable Showman, an American producer and guest of the hotel who hit the victim and threatened to kill her after she spurned his advances.

Priscilla finds herself blackmailed into going undercover by real-life copper Nipper Read, who wants to bring down the Kray twins, Reggie and Ronnie, London’s most vicious gangsters.

Seems Priscilla unwisely got noticed by Reggie, instantly smitten.

Meanwhile Diana Dors, billed as Britain’s Marilyn Monroe, was performing at the Savoy. Dors has film of Ronnie Kray in bed with a member of parliament who’s also a prominent member of the clergy.

History does seem to confirm that Dors regularly held orgies at her estate. Don’t worry, there’s an orgy scene filled with salacious detail. Feel free to tell your book club you didn’t understand what was being described.

And speaking again of consent, Dors is in a certain young woman’s home, jumps into her bed without a by-your-leave, and begins a sex act with no pretense of consent.

To belabour the salacious point, Anthony Armstrong-Jones is having an affair with the wife of Priscilla’s boss, while Tony was married to Princess Margaret. When Tony meets Priscilla, he immediately forces himself on her and kisses her passionately…

There are umpteen subplots, and Priscilla comes close to death several times, getting rescued one time by her close drinking buddies and sirs-all Noel Coward, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier. Don’t ask.

Scandal at the Savoy is entertaining to a degree, but it’s a rather sad followup to such a promising first book. Salacious, for sure, but as an enjoyable read, Priscilla has lost a fair bit of ground there.

Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin couldn’t even afford to walk by the Savoy when he graduated university. Probably better for him in the long run.