Book Review: The Gentleman Thief

Title: The Gentleman Thief 

Click to buy it on Bookshop

Author: Camille Elliot

Date: 2020

Publisher: Camy Tang

ISBN: 978-1-942225-20-1

Quote: "The magical night was awash with diamonds."

Most of them are, of course, cheap imitations. Even Holmendale wouldn't leave strings of real diamonds dangling from the rafters into people's faces. But he's celebrating the acquisition of a rare one. Ditzy teenager Rheda, who thinks she's "in love" with a boy who's obviously not interested in her, sees the lights go out, hears a violent confrontation, and learns that the precious stone has been stolen.

And the rest of the story is about the thief, whose identity is revealed to readers right away, and how he's caught, and why he did it, and what will become of him. Rheda, from whose point of view we saw chapter one, is forgotten.

 The Gentleman Thief is merely a "second prequel," a spin-off story that takes place earlier in time than a series of longer novels. In it we meet Lady Wynwood, a serious Christian who was widowed just in time and, at this early stage, still has feelings to work off by using her late husband's portrait for target practice. Lady Wynwood is neither the oldest nor the richest member, but surely the oldest and richest female member, of a social club of gentlemen crime fighters who want to do something about the barely checked crime that plagued real England during the Regency period. The diamond thief is another member of the club. Then there's Solomon Drydale, Lady Wynwood's admirer and mentor in crime fighting. Nothing like it is known to have happened in the real world, but in this fictional series the aristocrats and gentlefolk who become a private police force are religious people who attack social problems--not only crime--with love and prayer.

The resulting stories aren't the Sunday School books of your childhood. They're action-packed, improbable but delightfully "romantic," adventure stories that can be used--if you want to think seriously about frivolous adventure stories--to stir up thoughts about how love and prayer can be aimed at social problems in the real world. They're written with good intentions and excellent storytelling skills.

Still, although we'll probably meet Rheda and the boy she has a crush on later in the series, I'm not altogether delighted by the way a novelette as short as The Gentleman Thief starts off as a story about one character and then shifts into being a story about some other characters the first one barely knows. It may fit into the series as a whole but it's not the best of storytelling techniques.

I still enjoyed the story. Now that you're warned about its flaw, I'd guess that, if you like Regency novels, you will too. The full-length novels should be fun to read.