‘I assure you, Tom, if the phallus of St. Orgevald does not protect me, nothing will.’ [loc 2251]
A collection of three novellas featuring Lord John Grey, who was my summer crush this year. (I prefer my crushes fictional.)
'Lord John and the Hellfire Club' is set some time before Lord John and the Private Matter. Lord John is approached by a personable redhead with a deadly (undisclosed) secret, who is promptly murdered. Investigations lead Lord John to Francis Dashwood's Hellfire Club and its ostentatious wickedness -- and to Lord John's former lover, George Everett, who's a member of the Club. Mostly interesting for the views on sodomy asserted by various characters. Lord John may have a fiery temper, he has had a lifetime of repressing his responses to homophobic slurs.
'Lord John and the Succubus' takes place between Lord John and the Private Matter and Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade. Major Grey is English liaison to the Imperial Fifth Regiment of Hanoverian Foot, and finds that his duties include riding his horse Karolus through a graveyard at night in order to identify the resting-place of a succubus. Grey, as a rationalist, perceives some logical issues with this task, but obliges anyway -- and discovers the corpse of an English soldier. Discovering the connection between the soldier's death and the rumours of a succubus, Grey also has to fend off the attentions of a widowed noblewoman, whilst wondering if handsome Stephan von Namtzen's friendliness is simple good nature, or something more.
'Lord John and the Haunted Soldier' was my favourite of the three novellas. Set directly after Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, it deals in part with the Commission of Enquiry to which Grey is called after being severely injured by an exploding cannon. Turns out that his half-brother Edgar may be implicated, as his mills made the gunpowder used in that gun. Meanwhile, Lord John still suffers after-effects of the explosion, and a shard of metal in his chest could kill him at any moment. And he's haunted by the ghost, or the memory, of Lieutenant Lister, who was standing next to Lord John when a cannon-ball decapitated him.
In all three novellas, Lord John's honour, his rationalism, and his compassion urge him above and beyond what might be expected of him: and his wit and intelligence (and his friends) save him from the perils incumbent on his actions. Gabaldon's prose is well-paced and very readable: she takes a joy in unusual words (for instance 'absquatulating', a forgiveable anachronism) and her humour -- or Lord John's, perhaps -- tends to dryness rather than farce. I enjoy her books, though (spoiler!) it will turn out in later reviews that I really just enjoy Lord John Grey.
No comments:
Post a Comment