The Countess of Prague

The Countess of Prague is the wonderfully exciting introduction to Beatrice von Falklenburg, known to her intimates as Trixie, who will lead us from Prague through Europe and occasionally beyond on a ten-book set of investigations that begins in 1904 and finishes in 1914. The assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo that summer effectively ended the Old Europe into which she was born to a noble Czech father and an English mother. Through the lens of Trixie, whose own journey from pampered aristocrat (albeit in a polite and impoverished marriage) to a degree of emancipation has an exciting yet humorous and sympathetic dynamic, we witness stirring events and societal shifts.

Trixie begins her new career at 28. She's leading a society life and growing apart from her husband although she is as yet too conventional to take a lover. When the brutalized body of an old man once under the command of her military uncle is fished from the Vltava, she takes to the role of a detective and finds solace in it, mixing with ease with kings and princes, but never losing touch with ordinary men and women with whom her new role often puts her in contact. Investigating alters the formality of her relations with her servants and with public officials as we see when she encounters her butler in an unexpected role (and place) and then goes undercover (as a young man) on a train journey to Paris and London. Eventually, liaising with various officials, she arrives at Marienbad, the famous Czech spa, where Edward VII of England and his nephew Kaiser Wilhelm have staged a surprising May meeting....and it is here that the mystery unfolds.

Stephen Weeks is a writer, conservationist, and filmmaker. For thirty years he lived in a twelfth-century castle in Wales, which he restored. For the last fourteen years he has lived in Prague, Czech Republic. His films, as writer/director/producer, include the horror films, I, Monster and Ghost Story. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (and his own remake of it, Sword of the Valiant) are Arthurian romances, the latter starring Sir Sean Connery as the Green Knight. His novels include Daniela, a tragic love story set mainly in Prague 1944-'45, and Awakening Avalon, a supernatural thriller. His latest novel is The Nerve Doctor, a bizarre glimpse into the lives of two doctors setting up again in Prague in 1946. His return to making films is marked by The Pain of Mrs. Winterton, set in the last years of British India, and based on his novel to be published in 2017. He is still actively restoring castles in various parts of Europe.