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A review by helenh
Gentlemen Formerly Dressed by Sulari Gentill
3.0
There’s something about these books that is starting to annoy me. Don’t get me wrong -- I enjoy the breadth of the author’s research behind the plotting of her books, and the quality of the writing and characterization is superb. What’s starting to grate is the growing expectation that Sinclair is going to get roughed up/then beat up/nearly killed in every single one. That’s what certainly happened in the book before this, and what’s happening to Rowly and his band of merry friends in this one, as he comes up against members of the “brown shirts,” the Oswald Mosley group in Britain that advocated fascism and anti-Semitism -- and which might have succeeded if Hitler hadn’t put a kibosh on those plans. This is all a sidebar to the murder of a socially prominent peer, found in a compromising position.
Certainly names are dropped again -- H.G. Wells, the aforementioned Mosley, his henchman William Joyce, the male members of the royal family, ergo of course Mrs. Wallis Simpson(!), Evelyn Waugh (whom the author seems to have taken a particular dislike to), even Winston Churchill. They all figure in one way or another to further the storyline -- which mentioning here would amount to a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the denouement of the reasons for the murder and its aftermath is rather distasteful, even if it has a basis in history. Much is explained in the epilogue and the author’s afterword.
Thankfully, Sinclair and his friends are on their way back Down Under at the end of the book. Where he will no doubt find something else to nearly lose his life over.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the copy of this book, in exchange for this review.
Certainly names are dropped again -- H.G. Wells, the aforementioned Mosley, his henchman William Joyce, the male members of the royal family, ergo of course Mrs. Wallis Simpson(!), Evelyn Waugh (whom the author seems to have taken a particular dislike to), even Winston Churchill. They all figure in one way or another to further the storyline -- which mentioning here would amount to a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the denouement of the reasons for the murder and its aftermath is rather distasteful, even if it has a basis in history. Much is explained in the epilogue and the author’s afterword.
Thankfully, Sinclair and his friends are on their way back Down Under at the end of the book. Where he will no doubt find something else to nearly lose his life over.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the copy of this book, in exchange for this review.