Princess Jennifer of Edinburgh has had a life not unlike that of Princess Diana, the difference being that when we meet her, Prince Conrad, her husband, has been killed in a speedboat accident. Desirous to help end the ongoing conflict in the North of Ireland, Jennifer gets involved in studies and negotiations, becoming accepted as a mediator. The year is 1998.

TIARA begins as a planned peace conference gets under way, Jennifer's advisors warning that it may be targeted by terrorists. The Republican people are tired of being treated like second-class citizens, while the Unionists are afraid of being abandoned in the high-maintenance province to be absorbed into the Irish state. In civilised London's Covent Garden however, an assassin is being offered terms by Al Qaeda to remove Jennifer from the scene, as peace would stop their profitable trade with the IRA. This assassin is named Berlin Mansfield, one of the global security agencies' most wanted men. CIA operatives are ordered to Belfast for the summit, among IRA terrorist chiefs and drug-dealing UDA loyalist gangsters. What nobody knows however is that Mansfield is half in love with the popular princess and, with Irish roots, he longs for a solution to the chaos.

An underprepared security team can't prevent the princess's driver from crashing her car and the brave lady is kidnapped... by whom? Potentially by anyone who doesn't want peace. A sociopathic female serial killer is also on the loose, just to complicate matters, and SAS commandoes, bikers and lay preachers alike get involved, while terrorists don't hesitate to murder their own.

This quirky tale is as much an alternate reality as a thriller, with Britain still running an Empire and Scotland having its own monarchy. Names such as Skull Murphy, Fritz Hammer and Slash Sabre are amusing and characters seem off-the-wall but have been carefully drawn so as not to resemble actual individuals. Princess Jennifer is idealistic to a fault but brave and resourceful. Nobody else comes out well from this scenario - the author doesn't scruple to describe both sides in the conflict as mass murderers and serial killers, profiting hugely from illegal deals which would be halted if the police were free to get on with policing. The CIA operatives are also linked to a missing stash of heroin and they own mansions. The writing style is American, with narration references to sheetrock, a panel truck and block party, while people regularly grin or gesture words instead of speaking them. There is a particularly funny aside where a woman is accused of being a Fenian, and shouts back that she's a Wiccan. Being Irish I can look back at the chaos of the time described and just be glad that it's largely over, but the period does lend itself to endlessly complex plotting and action.

TIARA is reminiscent of early Terence Strong books although I think John Reinhard Dizon is writing more for Americans, and he just needs to be careful that his readers don't get confused with the parade of organisation initials. As an action story it's a decent read, if peopled largely by men. I wouldn't mind seeing Princess Jennifer in another adventure.