No more nice guys – Book review for NetGalley – Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (Rowland Sinclair #5) by Sulari Gentill

A Rowland Sinclair Novel (The fifth book in the Rowland Sinclair Mystery Series)
After narrowly escaping Nazi terror, Rowland Sinclair and his companions land in London, believing they are safe.
But they are wrong.
A bizzare murder plunges the hapless Australians into a queer world of British aristocracy, Fascist Blackshirts, illicit love, scandal and spies.
A world where gentlemen are not always what they are dressed up to be.

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When old friends come around you make them welcome. You feed them and give them a drink. You catch up. You laugh and you.. you cry and you get angry if your dearest friends share something horrible with you.
I have not ‘seen’ Rowly since the very first book in the series (A Few Right Thinking Men), but I love him and care for him nevertheless. Rowly has taken up the same place in my heart and my mind of a polygamous reader as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Phryne Fisher and Erast Fandorin.

I love the man. I love his style. I love his friends and his adventures. But… there are some things I find hard to swallow. Like when my friend comes back broken and branded. When he needs people to listen but they are too busy playing nice with monsters.

5th installment in Rowland Sinclair adventures is like a book grown. Rowly has changed. His adventures have changed as well. Yes, they are still very much up market, impeccable in style, dressed to the nines and etc (all the usual trimmings). But now the goings on are much more sinister and gloomy.

Having an adventure of hindsight (we do know what happens in the late 30s in Europe) it is even more hurtful and heart-wrenching. It’s like letting your friends go to some dangerous place, without knowing if they return.

One of the thing that brought me both joy and annoyance, is tingling, ticking and buzzing thought ‘will they, won’t they’. Hell, they are running out of time. The war is coming. Will Edna and Rowly get together? How many more books Sulari will have to write before making it happen?

Well, there is a murder, there are many European aristocrats, there is even a dress up ball of very peculiar nature. There is so much in this story, reader will be kept interested and entertained.

If you want more and you will want more, read forward or backwards. I will do both.

Enjoy