An account of the life and work of a police officer who served to protect Princess Diana the Princess of Hearts. In a voyeuristic vein, the reader takes a glimpse of what it was like to be working closely alongside the People’s Princess. This moves from the professional to the personal relationship between Princess and Guard. Well written, using simple language, it’s easy to understand the characters and their nature, capturing nicely the conflict within the flailing relationship of Diana and Charles, although the author was a little hard on Charley.
In part it reads like fiction, the exotic locations, such as Richard Branson’s tropical island and snow shodden peaks of Austria. The author also comes across as a fictional character, mainly because of the hard to believe one sided view that the author was so flawless and always did the right thing.
There was conflict resolution, where the author had to negotiate with paparazzi, Prince Charles. Which read very well, but it would have been better to have added more details on about the way that the police team worked in guarding the Princess.
I didn’t like the way that the author sexualised the Princess, describing her suntanned bikini body and slinky dress. Some of this was in context, due to the nature of her harassment by the media at the time. But it comes across that the author mentally undressed her as he worked alongside her, sure this adds some realism that I said I wanted, but it also left a sour taste of exploitation and commodification of the female body. The boundary between guard and Princess was crossed mentally if not physically like in the film The Bodyguard. Also in reference to the paparazzi, the author was really driving home the point that the foreign press were ruthless and had no moral character. This could reflect the authors anger at her death, having been caused by a rogue paparazzi. It could be that he had to reiterate the official line on her demise.
The cover to this book is very good, the protection squad no doubt having selected the clothing to camoflage the Princess against the Pyramids, evading the snoopers lens. But in conclusion, I would not recommend this book because of the sexualisation of the Princess and the distinct lack of policing in it. However this may make interesting reading for Princess Diana fans, who may be used to this kind of book.
In part it reads like fiction, the exotic locations, such as Richard Branson’s tropical island and snow shodden peaks of Austria. The author also comes across as a fictional character, mainly because of the hard to believe one sided view that the author was so flawless and always did the right thing.
There was conflict resolution, where the author had to negotiate with paparazzi, Prince Charles. Which read very well, but it would have been better to have added more details on about the way that the police team worked in guarding the Princess.
I didn’t like the way that the author sexualised the Princess, describing her suntanned bikini body and slinky dress. Some of this was in context, due to the nature of her harassment by the media at the time. But it comes across that the author mentally undressed her as he worked alongside her, sure this adds some realism that I said I wanted, but it also left a sour taste of exploitation and commodification of the female body. The boundary between guard and Princess was crossed mentally if not physically like in the film The Bodyguard. Also in reference to the paparazzi, the author was really driving home the point that the foreign press were ruthless and had no moral character. This could reflect the authors anger at her death, having been caused by a rogue paparazzi. It could be that he had to reiterate the official line on her demise.
The cover to this book is very good, the protection squad no doubt having selected the clothing to camoflage the Princess against the Pyramids, evading the snoopers lens. But in conclusion, I would not recommend this book because of the sexualisation of the Princess and the distinct lack of policing in it. However this may make interesting reading for Princess Diana fans, who may be used to this kind of book.