4 stars
This was such a fun read! Royal Gambit blends spies, royalty, and O'Malley's signature weirdness in the best way. The plot moves fast, there are plenty of twists, and the dialogue is sharp and funny. I loved the main character—super capable but still very human—and the world O'Malley builds is just so cool.
It did get a bit overly complex in places, and I wanted a little more from some of the side characters, but overall, it totally delivered. If you liked The Rook, you’ll probably love this too.

It had been a while since I read the earlier installments of this series, but one thing that's enjoyable about them is that I can just pick up the new ones and go! The characters are fun, the powers are silly, the mystery is pleasant - these books are just fun.

I was very excited to see that Daniel O'Malley was coming out with a new book in this series! I have been hooked since the original installment "The Rook" that came out over a decade ago. This book was as interest holding as all the other books in the series. I also enjoyed the British Royalty aspect and learning some behind the scenes court information. Alix was fun character to support and hope she is in some of the other books moving forward even as a side character. If you enjoyed the other books, you would enjoy this one too. This series is also somewhat stand alone and does a good job of reminding you what you need to know for every book without feeling like it does. This book makes me want to start the series all over again.

I enjoyed this, I didn't know it was part of an interconnected series so I was a bit confused but it was still a fun read!

I really love Daniel O'Malley's first two books and re-read them somewhat regularly so I was excited to see that, in the fourth installment, we learn more about Alexandra Dennis-Palmer-Hudson-Gilmore-Garnsey (i.e., Pawn Mondegreen) who is mentioned in the Royal Ascot scene in Stiletto. After the first-in-line to the throne dies under circumstances that bring it under the authority of the Checquey, Mondegreen is assigned to watch over the new heir.

Royal Gambit was really entertaining and definitely a must-read for fans of the series. It had some small cameos (Lady Farrier, Myfanwy, Odette, Felicity, Shantay, etc.) and continued to do some world-building with more the Checquey's history. It also brought back some of the bigger conceptual themes like whether the Checquey's mission to too narrowly defined or, to put it another way, the Spiderman dilemma. It was a little different than the other books in that its plot action might be a little bit more of a straight mystery-procedural with a good helping of sci-fi/fantasy and a dash of psychological explorations. All in all, a fun and quick read!

If you liked the previous couple entries of this series, you'll like this. It's well written, fun, and I felt compelled to keep reading it until it was done. I don't think that anything has quite managed to capture the lightning in a bottle of The Rook, and I don't think this does either, but you can rely on there being plenty of weird stuff and comically absurd senseless violence and I would still recommend it.

I think there are two things that The Rook had going for it that made it so special: the sense of discovery that Myfanwy experiences as she learns about the Checquy (which the modern day sections of Blitz did well) and the immersive weirdness of poorly-understood, large-scale manifestations (which Stiletto did well). Neither of those is really present here: while the other books have murder mysteries as framing devices, Royal Gambit is a murder mystery through and through, and that means that there's a lot of basic, mundane police work. The need to keep the supernatural aspect of the murder secret restricts the setting and limits the amount of truly weird stuff that can happen, and so the wish fulfillment aspect of the setting changes from being about the power of magic power to being about the power of money and status.

In effect, Royal Gambit trades the trappings of supernatural status and power for worldly status and power. To be clear, this is also a fun thing to read about, but given that a lot of Alix's emotional arc is about desiring to be a strong part of the Checquy, that's not used enough to be quite as fun as the powers of the women of the previous three books. These books have always felt a little like a pastiche of British bureaucracy and "stiff upper lip" spirit, the idea that foreign people often have that British people keep calm and carry on in the face of ridiculous stuff. I've never minded that, especially given how many emotionally repressed Brits I know well, and it's fun to see that turned directly on the royal family. This is a book that views them with a rather kinder lens than I think may be warranted in real life, but it makes sense for the story.

I will note that I deeply appreciate that the protagonists and main supporting characters are overwhelmingly women. Myfanwy, Odette, Felicity, Lynette, Brigette, Pamela, Usha, and now Alix: these books centre and empower the women of this world, and do so in a way that never veers into "girl power" stereotypes. I liked seeing more of Lady Farrier in this book, but I can't help but want more than the cameo appearances from Myfanwy, Felicity, and Odette. I think Alix's characterisation probably wasn't as strong as theirs, and I'm hoping that one of these days, they'll all come together meaningfully.

I can't help but feel like something is coming. Each additional book has ended with some additional supernatural resources off the books, not known to the official organisation of the Checquy. Something is going to come in one of these books one day that calls on all of them, on (view spoiler). I know it's going to be devastating when it happens, and I can't wait.