July 1907, Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart, are on a working holiday to Bath. For Orlando to assess some old manuscripts to see whether the College would like to buy them, while Jonty hopes to finish his evaluation of a book of sonnets. But while visitng the baths at the House of Sulis, a Stewart family tradition they are asked by the owner Dr Buckner to investigate the death of a female some twenty-five years ago. But what of the threat to their own personal relationship.
An enjoyable well-written mystery ( )

Read for m/m team bingo challenge.

Read for m/m team bingo challenge. ( )

Reading a book with Jonty and Orlando as main characters is like meeting with old friends. There is very little to discover, but those little details are delightful.

I have always found Orlando a nice man, but maybe a bit aloof; he is most likely to react hiding himself in an imaginary shell, than facing what he didn’t like; only since Jonty knows him so well, he is able to interpreter his moods and stopping possible trouble even before they happen.

Like in this story: Orland is jealous of Jonty, of his renewed friendship with a college friend, who actually is interested in something more. And truth be told, also Jonty sometime wonders what could have been, but that is the nice thing of these characters, they are real, and like real men, they are able to question even himself. Anyway this is probably the biggest proof that Orlando is developing in a better man, less “head on the clouds”: he is able to realize that his love for Jonty is the most important thing in his life, but it’s also something that can disappear if he is not careful. I also like that, even if he doesn’t exactly react with vehemence, at least he is able to externalize his feelings, and to make Jonty aware that he doesn’t like the situation. It’s an important step in their relationship, also since, maybe, it’s the first time that Orlando claims their love, till now it was always Jonty who pursued him, and it was the time that Orlando acknowledged it.

As usual there is a mystery to solve, and as usual the mystery has more the feeling of a set of cards game than a real dangerous situation; nor Orlando or Jonty are directly involved, they are doing it out of boring, and for the pleasure of solve a puzzle, they are not, and will never been “real” detective.

There is a bit more of “daring” sex scenes, meaning that, it’s more clear when Orlando and Jonty are spending time together in the same bed, but that’s all, this series is not the place to find “hot and bothered” sex, this is more the classical example of “something happened, but you are not entailed to know the details, and why you should be? You are nor Orlando or Jonty, the only two who have that right”.

I quite like the closing chapter, with Jonty and Orlando sending separately postcards to their friends and relatives at home, both of them with their version of the true; it helps to strengthen my first impression, that this is becoming a “familiar” series, each instalment in the series is a step more in the friendship of the reader with the Cambridge Fellows.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1605048623/?tag=elimyrevandra-20