Lord John and the Private Matter

Lord John and the Private Matter (2003) Diana Gabaldon

I read a Lord John short story by Diana Gabaldon in the anthology Down These Strange Streets, and if you know anything about my reading preference, you should be impressed when I tell you it was a zombie story, and I still wanted to search out more stories about Lord John.

This is both an historical romance and an historical mystery, and the main character is a gay (closeted, of course, because this is an historical) officer in the British army.

It is also–despite some of my concerns while reading–a thoroughly researched historical, so I got to read about gay society in historical London, and was shocked by some of the things I read, primarily because (according to her thorough research [she has an extensive bibliography]) some of the mannerism and dialogue wouldn’t stand out in modern society.

Specifically, it was the term “Miss Thing” that threw me out of the story completely, yet, according to her footnotes/bibliography, was used at the time.

Stuff like that fascinates and amazes and delights me.

According to the preface, this started out as a short story, but grew into a full-length novel.

Lord John discovers that the man his cousin is supposed to marry is infected with the pox–syphilis. Because his cousin was taken in by his mother after her parents died, this is of more than passing concern to Lord John, and so he must determine a way to end the engagement, even though the marriage date is starting to loom.

Then, he is drawn into the death of Sergeant O’Connell, who may possibly have been involved in the theft of papers–treason.

The story started off slowly, and took me awhile to get into it, but once I was a couple chapters in, I then devoured the rest of the story, drawn into the mystery.

I do recommend this.
Rating: 7/10

Published by Bantam Dell

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