I love this series. I love Jonty but I especially love Orlando, who has changed so very much since his introduction in the first book! ( )

At the sixth book in the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries maybe it’s superfluous to say that I love these two “cute” guys, Jonty and Orlando, so deeply in love with each other and yet still so new to their love; book after book it seems like they can’t get enough of the joy of living together, and it’s not only, or probably not even, a sexual thing; like the author tells us, Jonty and Orlando are now living together, and they are very much like an ordinary couple: they still enjoy the sexual side of their relationship, but their living together is much more, sometime also going to be together maybe to talk and fall asleep in each other arms, just for the joy to be able to.

For this reason, when they need to investigate on the murder of a former mistress of the king, in a exclusive hotel in the country, and Orlando has to go undercover, like an hired dance partner for the ladies, is biggest regret is to not being able to share his everyday (and everynight) rountine with Jonty. And it’s cute to read that on the other hand, his biggest worry is that he will go under the guise of a “gigolo”: yes, since Orlando, in his naivite, matches being a dance partner with being a gigolo, even if no one will ask him to provide more than his services on the dance floor.

In this story Jonty and Orlando are formally separated but I think as never as before they are together: the yearning to be together is so strong, exchanging glances across the room, knowing the one you love is so near and yet so far, gives to both of them, but above all to Jonty, the chance to appreciate even more the fact that they are together. Jonty is in this new adventure with a special companion, his father Richard Stewart, and Mr. Stewart will be a perfect counselor to his son’s questions about love and relationships, giving him a yardstick between his own story with Orlando and the one between his parents.

Another thing that is in common to the books in this series, and that book after book captivates me, is the accurate description of the English society of the beginning of the XX century; it’s a privileged society, a mix between aristocracy and middle-class, a society that could afford to spend time in elegant hotels at easy reach distance, like Kent, Conrwall or maybe on the other side of the sea, in France. It’s a society that is in a changing phase, that will soon disappear, and when I started to read this series, I was worried by something: both Jonty and Orlando are young enough to be involved in the coming I World War conflict, and I so hope they will not. In this book, set in 1907, for the first time we had an hint to the turmoils that are happening in the continent. I don’t want to think what could be of these two men if they had to be separated, a real separation, not a fake one like in this story, but something like a war, for how I read them, I don’t think they will survive to that.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160504928X/?tag=elimyrevandra-20