Elizabeth II

At first glance Elizabeth the Queen, Sally Bedell Smith's biography of Britain's present monarch, may seem more of the same, added commentary on what most readers already know. The book, however, is more than just a cursory glimpse of a currently celebrated figure in British history. It is a portrait with some degree of depth.

Published to commemorate the 2012 Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II and to salute her sixty years on the throne, Smith's revealing look at the present queen has been long planned and well researched. Her intense personal interest in the queen and her attempts to slip past guarded sources and palace protocol are evident throughout, yet the book succeeds in presenting a credible and pleasing sketch of a woman dedicated, from her earliest years, to duty.

While the queen's dedication to duty is legendary and is a quality Smith makes central to her book, Elizabeth II's other, more personal traits are accorded full play.

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor succeeded to the English throne in 1952, at the age of twenty-five. Now, 60 years later, biographer Smith re-visits the queen's long public reign and often fraught family life. Armed with newly available documents and interviews with many close to the queen and her changing court, Smith comes both eager and well prepared.

Smith sees Elizabeth II as exceptionally hard-working, and as a woman of many guises. She is, most of all, tireless in her attention to her role as constitutional monarch. Each day she reviews red leather dispatch cases packed with confidential government documents, and she meets, once weekly, with the prime minister of the day, who briefs her on parliamentary affairs. To date, she has established working relationships with 12 prime ministers, beginning with Winston Churchill.

Although hemmed in by inherited protocol the queen has become a modern monarch, a head of state able to combine tradition with the demands of contemporary custom. Some of her grandchildren are without royal titles and are free to pursue unstructured lives. The role of the church is no longer predominant and although the queen is purported to retain religious allegiance, both divorce and unwed cohabitation are accepted, and steps have been taken to allow inter-faith marriage and first child (rather than first male) accession to the throne. As a modern monarch, the queen is also paying income tax. Far from feeling disoriented by so much change, the queen, according to Smith, has the presence of mind to adapt.

But Smith's engaging biography is at its best when it skims the contours of the queen's private life, lightly assessing the interests, peeves, concerns and affections which have marked her life. In an early chapter she describes a busy queen unwinding before lunch with an habitual gin and Dubonnet with lemon and ice and, later, enjoying a pre-dinner martini with her prickly husband, Prince Philip. When the two are alone, meals are always simple; grilled meat, chicken or fish, vegetables from Windsor farm, cheese and, at times, strawberries and cream.

When she isn't involved with official business, the queen loves to walk with her clutch of corgis around palace gardens or to relax on family picnics at Balmoral. Race horses, however, are what Smith describes as the queen's "refuge and passion."

Smith's entertaining portrait of Elizabeth II, although not sycophantic, is admiring. She finds the queen a woman of strong resolve, but little self absorption; confident rather than egotistic. She is, Smith remarks, physically strong, intelligent and, despite appearances, full of the good humour needed to carry out her tasks.

BOOKS IN BRIEF

The Vault

By Ruth Rendell

(Random House)

No one does domestic crime like British author Ruth Rendell. Her iconic Det. Insp. Reg Wexford has retired from police work and he and his wife Dora divide their time between Kings Markham, where he was Chief Inspector for many years, and a pied-a-terre in London. But Wexford misses police work and is delighted when a local cop asks him to act as an 'adviser' on a troubling case. Three dead bodies have just been discovered, after lying for years in an old cold cellar in a house in affluent St. John's Wood. None of the victims is identified, and given the house's turnover of owners, any evidence about the case is hard to come by. While Wexford turns his experienced eye on the task, his domestic life, especially dealing with his difficult daughter Sylvia, is in turmoil, and he must struggle with these problems, as well as his sense of powerlessness in dealing with witnesses unofficially. Another Rendell winner.

- Yvonne Crittendon

Darkness, My Old Friend

By Lisa Unger

(Random House)

Lisa Unger's new mystery novel has her usual winning combination of psychological suspense and a cast of interesting characters. Det. Jones Cooper lives in the sleepy rural town of The Hollows and is not enjoying retirement as much as he expected. When he is warned by the local psychic about some dire future happenings, he is dismissive, but then finds himself caught up in the case of a woman who had gone missing many years earlier. Her disturbed son has never given up hoping for his mother's return. Also in the mix is 15-year old Willow, angry that her writer mother Bethany had moved her from the bright lights of Manhattan to The Hollows, after a bitter divorce. Another good read.

- Yvonne Crittendon