Diana Gabaldon: Lord John and the Private Matter

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON

Eighteenth-century London is an irresistible subject for writers drawn to the lewd and stinking. And so it is in this remarkably short novel (for Gabaldon - it's a mere 300 pages, compared with her more usual 900), where we run the gamut of disgustingness, from putrid corpses, the pox, pisspots that reek behind screens at gentlemen's clubs, to alleyways littered with dog turds and baleful rats.

Not only that, but the entire population, from society wives to the officer class and to the teeming masses, seems to be in a constant state of inebriation, or at least well-primedness. Ale, wine, brandy, sherry, port - scarcely a page goes by without several glasses being knocked back, regardless of the time of day.

Gabaldon, with her usual facility for three-dimensional research, has unearthed a surprising demi-monde in which to set a significant part of this novel: the world of gay men and cross-dressers, of "molly-walks" such as bog-houses and certain arcades, and private salons where men of "a certain nature" gather to set aside the masks they must wear in the outside world.

Surprisingly, she unearths such facts as the terms like "rough trade" and "Miss Thing" were in existence at the time she's writing about, 1857.

Then there's Lord John Grey, elevated in these pages from the bit-part status he has in Gabaldon's Outlander series, to centre-stage. For Lord John and the Private Matter is an "interpolation" in the storyline of that series, a diversion that takes place when Lord John is not interacting with Jamie or Claire and so is free to pursue his own private life.

The adventure he finds himself in is complicated. Private matters, such as the health of his cousin's fiance (was that a pox sore he spied on the gentleman's penis?), and his own sexuality (his great love Hector was killed in battle, but he is aware of powerful feelings drawing him to those demi-monde establishments) segue into a murder mystery involving the theft of vital English military information and the treacherous world of spies.

This is really classic crime fiction - clues reveal themselves under the sharp observation of our hero, who also knows an awful lot about evidence left inadvertently on the bodies of victims ("see how the skin is completely discoloured upon the dorsal aspect?" he remarks to his sidekick, loyal valet Tom Byrd).

And, as in books of that genre, there's the wrapping up at the end, the complete resolution of all elements of the convoluted plot - with just enough question marks over the future of certain key characters to suggest they might resurface in future diversionary novels, or even in the mainstage Outlander series.

And what of Jamie and Claire? More than 62,000 copies of book five, The Fiery Cross, were sold in New Zealand alone, so there are an extraordinary number of fans who will really have to wait for No. 6 to catch up.

There is scarcely a mention of the beloved couple, although Grey does occasionally muse about Jamie, who at that moment, albeit confined within the covers of The Fiery Cross, is being kept prisoner up in bonnie Scotland.

Still, in the barren time between Outlander instalments, Lord John makes for a pleasant diversion. Gabaldon revels in history and loves her characters, and it's always a winning formula.

Century, $34.95