jacey | Book Log 34/2015 - Diana Gabaldon: Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade Lord John #2 (Reply)

Another of the Outlander spinoffs set in the mid 1750s featuring John Grey, youngest son of the disgraced, deceased Duke of Pardloe, and an unrepentant homosexual in an era when it was a hanging offence. Lord John is a principled young man, a career soldier (Major) in his older brother, Hal's regiment. This is a mystery, but largely concerning the story surrounding the Duke of Pardloe's demise, supposedly a suicide, but John Grey, only twelve at the time it happened, knows differently.

A fair bit of the plot hinges on people on the same side not sharing information and it takes a while for John to pull the story together from what he knows and what he discovers. If his mother and older brother had come clean then it would have been a much shorter book.

Ms Gabaldon knows how to write a page turner and with the main murder-mystery, the military detail, and the sub-plot of Grey's complex relationship with Percy, his new step-brother by marriage, there's a lot to like in this book. It's also good to see Jamie Fraser, main character in Outlander, appearing here in a minor but vital role.