A thief and a private investigator team up to solve a theft, and the vibes are basically a case-of-the-week tv episode (think Charlie’s Angels, Remington Steele, White Collar, etc) playing historical dress-up. The plot is as straightforward as it gets—they search for a macguffin, they get a clue, they get another clue, they solve the case. No twisty characters or KJ Charles-level plotting here. I was all set to breeze through it and enjoy myself regardless, and then a bad case of instalove reared its head, along with ye olde hardcore gender essentialism, the kind that bums me out and turns me off. For example, a memorable scene where Harry has to dress like a dandy for an undercover recon (an Italian dandy, at that), and the author takes great pains to assure us that, “On any other man, the ensemble would have looked ridiculous, almost feminine, but on him the flamboyant clothes only served to accentuate his intense masculinity.”1
Sigh. That’s on me for reading outside my lane, but my hope for a quick, fun read with heists and spies didn’t pan out.
ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.