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One of the most fascinating books ever written is a conspiracy novel with a factual basis called To Kill A Princess: The Diana Plot.
Timothy B. Benford of Mountainside, an exceptionally talented professional writer, has conspired to write a book that integrates fact and fiction in such a way that a reader often cannot tell the difference. It was published by American Book Publishers.
Those who are interested in the late Princess Diana have their own ideas and thoughts about her tumultuous life and her tragic death. The rumors and theories are put to rest once and for all in novel form and a reader can relax with such a book, vaguely leaving the responsibilities of truth and fiction to its author.
However, Benford is meticulous about what is fact and what is fiction after the story is told and, at the end of the book, the fictional and factual characters are identified in two brief sections called First Epilogue and Second Epilogue.
Among them is Archie Blair, a Secret Intelligence Service man, who belongs to Britain's MI6, assigned to shadow Diana in Paris, particularly in August 1997. This turned out to be the last time she was seen alive at the Ritz Hotel, where she had dinner with her fiancee, Dodi Al Fayed.
Then there's the retired deputy director of SIS and its counterpart, MI5, an internal security agency for the United Kingdom, Sir Warren Wormsley, head of The Committee, composed of loyal monarchists, who is inhumanly tireless in his surveillance of the princess and his ultimate plans for her demise with the knowledge of the royals.
One would be hard-pressed to believe that the gorgeous Megan Price, with the flowing red hair, was a terrifying rogue agent for England. She not only turns heads with her extraordinary beauty, but easily breaks necks with the twist of a wrist.
Also working under the sinister Sir Warren is his friend and former government minister, Austin Smythe-Pembrooke. One of the most interesting characters in the books is Bat Lynch, an American Army captain, who worked closely with Blair during Operation Desert Storm, and who also is a secret agent.
It seems that everyone is involved in an intricate plot to kill Diana, Princess of Wales. The book meticulously covers every angle of her personality: her utter disappointment in her husband, Prince Charles, who openly continues a relationship with his lover, Camilla Parker Bowles; her many illicit relationships with other men in her life; her desperate attempt to keep her sons, William — heir apparent to the throne — and Harry in her life; her illnesses and her idiosyncracies.
She comes to life as a human being, via Benford, and a reader is able to take a long, intricate look at a princess who is a woman in every way.
The story painstakingly takes a reader — familiar with facts, hungry for more information — on a stormy journey with its inevitable, utterly final end.
The settings are real and realistic, particularly on the island of Nevis, where the princess and her sons vacation, and in Paris, the City of Lights, where he life ended.
Benford, who has written a number of books, including The Royal Family Quiz & Fact Book, is so knowledgeable about the Royal Family that he dares to unveil his interpretation of what might have happened on that fatal night in the tunnel.
To Kill A Princess: The Diana Plot is a real page turner, but this reviewer is puzzled about where to place it on the shelf — the fiction or factual book section.
Perhaps on both?
Bea Smith is a staff writer for Worral Community Newspapers and can be reached at
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