2008-08-06 Gabaldon refreshed

Like some of the other reviewers here I think Gabaldon has written herself into an impasse with the Jamie and Clair series, and have found the last couple of books turgid, repetitive and increasingly dull. However with the Lord John series, of which this is the first, Gabaldon's imagination seems to have been revved up and released again.

Taking Lord John out of the J&C series, this finds him in London after he's left Jamie a `prisoner' in Scotland. A major in the British army, Lord John is drawn into the murder of a fellow soldier, complicated by the sub-plot of his cousin's marriage to a man Lord John knows has syphilis, and his own secret homoeroticism.

The mystery element romps along a tad slowly but Gabaldon's strengths are in the evocation of her characters. Lord John is intelligent and quietly charismatic, with depths that enticingly remain half-hidden. Later books (LJ and the hand of devils; LJ and the brotherhood of the blade) both fill out his back-story as well as take him forward. Well worth a read.