In "King and Joker," Peter Dickinson paints an oxzymoronic picture … of an imaginary British royal family….

On a social level, the members of the royal family are rather like high-wire performers in a circus. If they fall, they have so far to go; there is suspense in the spectacle of their keeping their balance.

Disturbing that balance is the purpose of the Joker…. He is bent on proving that the jewels in the crown are false, that nobility is an anachronism, that it would be better if the British public were disillusioned once and for all, disabused of its favorite fairy tale, that old anti-Freudian dream of an ideal father and mother….

"King and Joker" is full of Mr. Dickinson's usual flourishes: When the King inspects a guard of honor, he looks at the constables not with a military but with a medical eye and delivers silent diagnoses...