Narrated by Cornell Collins
Any Old Diamonds is the first of two novels set in late Victorian England featuring a pair of jewel thieves known as the Lilywhite Boys, and in it, K.J. Charles relates a thoroughly entertaining story of murder, betrayal, revenge, intrigue… and love found in the unlikeliest of places.
Lord Alexander Greville de Keppel Pyne-ffoulkes, younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, has supported himself for the past eight years, working – as plain Alec Pine – as an illustrator for books and newspapers. As the son of one of the wealthiest men in the country it’s far from the life he was born to, but he and his older brother and two sisters were cut off by their father following a massive falling out that had been brewing for years. After their mother’s death, the duke married – with indecent haste – the woman with whom he’d been having an affair, and when Alec and his siblings refused to kowtow to the new duchess as their father demanded, he disowned them.
Since then, Alec has lived quietly in London, but the recent death of his sister Cara after the duke refused all requests for help in financing her medical treatment was the last straw. As payback – for the duke’s treatment of all of them – he hatches a plan to steal the hugely valuable (and vulgarly ostentatious) diamond parure the duke has had made to present to the duchess on the occasion of their twentieth anniversary – which is where the infamous Lilywhite Boys come in.
Jerry Crozier and Templeton Lane aren’t at all what Alec had been expecting. Rather than a pair of grubby ruffians, he’s met by a pair of well-spoken, well-groomed men-about-town who quickly make it clear that they’ve done their homework on him and his situation – and that if he wants to go ahead with the theft, he’s signing up to play a long game in which he’ll have a part to enact, too. He’s going to have to convincingly befriend Crozier in order to secure an invitation for them both to Castle Speight for the anniversary celebrations, but the hardest part will be keeping his plans a secret from his brother and sister and allowing them to think that he’s gone crawling back to his father in hopes of getting back into his good books.
Nervous but determined, Alec embarks upon the first part of the plan, which is to strike up a friendship with Crozier, whom he found rather intimidating at their first meeting. Crozier is, by his own admission, not a good man, yet he’s also confident, charming and, when it comes to Alec, extremely perceptive, recognising what it’s costing him to keep his siblings in the dark and swallow his pride in order to ingratiate himself with the duke. The two men are as different as chalk and cheese, and their growing friendship is superbly done and obviously real, coming to mean more to both of them than a means to an end. Their mutual attraction is evident, too, the chemistry between them sparking fast and hot, and leading to a number of steamy encounters during which Jerry is only too pleased to accommodate Alec’s desire to submit to his control.
The plot is intriguing and deftly put-together, but just when the audience thinks they’ve got it all figured out, the author pulls the rug out from under our feet and executes a masterful twist just after the half-way point which throws a very different perspective on the story – and re-introduces us to the firm of Braglewicz and Lazarus, enquiry agents, in the person of the formidable, take-no-prisoners Susan (formerly Sukey) Lazarus. (Fans of the author will no doubt appreciate – as I did – the shout-outs to characters from both the Sins of the Cities and Society of Gentlemen series, my favourite being Susan’s remark about the fact that her guvnors have been together for more than twenty years and haven’t stopped arguing yet! ;))
The romance between Alec and Jerry is well developed, with both men able to see things in each other that they had not perhaps realised about themselves – although because the story is told entirely from Alec’s PoV, I found it a little bit more difficult than I might otherwise have done to buy into Jerry’s emotional commitment to Alec. The story ends on a very firm HFN, and Jerry’s feelings are made very clear by his actions in the last few chapters, so maybe I’m just being greedy – but I missed Jerry’s PoV.
Cornell Collins once again delivers an enjoyable and insightful performance that expertly captures the essence of the two leads and also provides effective portrayals of the secondary and minor characters. The higher pitch and (sometimes) hesitant delivery he assigns to Alec quickly and clearly establish him as a young gentleman who isn’t always that sure of himself, while the deeper tones and darker timbre of Jerry’s voice provide an excellent contrast as well as showing his confidence and greater experience. I was especially impressed with the way Mr. Collins conveys Jerry’s ability to slip into different personas, from the urbane gentleman whom Alec befriends, to the sharper, more dangerous man who delivers a brutal beating to a would-be blackmailer. And because the narrator does such a good job when it comes to communicating the emotional connection building between the leads, it goes some way towards compensating for the lack of the second PoV. I also really liked his portrayal of Susan; her tenacity and determination come through in her cockney-accented speech and waspish delivery, marking her as a woman most definitely not to be messed with!
Any Old Diamonds is clever, witty and sexy; a real gem of a story combined with an excellent performance, it’s a sure-fire winner.
Caz
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