The Royals

The audiocassette version of Kitty Kelley's The Royals is abridged, which means you just get the good stuff. Kelley herself reads, purring cattily along, narrating the downstairs gossip about the upstairs Windsors. Here's Queen Elizabeth insisting her 17 Welsh corgis appear on a TV special, and Prince Charles snatching one last rendezvous with Camilla Parker-Bowles on the eve of his marriage to Diana Spencer. The dish is delish, but after listening too long, it gets harder to sneer along with Kitty as the Royal Family takes on more tragic dimensions. The greatest crime a Windsor can commit is not infidelity, drunkenness, or unusual sexual practices. No, the worst sin is going before the public, as both Diana and Charles did in the aftermath of their stormy marriage, and telling people about it. For the Windsors, it seems, anything goes. Anything that is, but indiscretion.