Genre: Historical, Romance, Mystery
LGBTQ+ Category: Gay
Reviewer: Ulysses
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About The Book
1892
Five characters from the Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere Mysteries find themselves taking the train to Cornwall for the 1892 Larkspur Hall Christmas Eve ball. To pass the time, they each tell a story from their past.
Sitting in their carriage is a stranger who listens to their stories of detection, mystery and prophesy, and recognises some of the people involved. As they near their destination, the stranger realises he is more involved with his fellow passengers than they know, but who is he? Where is he going, and why?
1892 can be read as a short, standalone novella, and there’s no need to have read the Clearwater, Larkspur or Delamere series to enjoy the story. However, you might gain more from reading 1892 if you already know the characters and their histories.
1893
On a fog-bound winter night, five men from the Clearwater, Larkspur, and Delamere Mysteries find themselves stranded in a rural railway station, awaiting a special train bound for Larkspur Hall and Clearwater’s annual Christmas Ball.
To pass the long hours, they share candid, colourful, and often amusing tales from their pasts while the attentive stationmaster listens in. Yet the youngest among the group, a stranger, grows increasingly uneasy. He bears a secret and is the subject of mysterious messages that arrive throughout the night. Who is he, and why has he been invited to Larkspur Hall? Only by unravelling their stories can the group piece together the truth.
‘1893’ is the second collection of Clearwater Tales and can be enjoyed as a short, standalone novella. You don’t need to have read the Clearwater, Larkspur, or Delamere series, but returning readers may find extra delight in recognising familiar faces and histories.
The Review
I’m reviewing these together because I read them one after the other. Having recently completed the 29th book in the three-part Clearwater triple series: Clearwater Mysteries, Larkspur Mysteries, Delamere Mysteries; I was still hungry for more.
Both of these books bring characters from each of the three book series and put them together in a clearly contrived situation—but one which always makes sense in the Clearwater universe. The Clearwater books are all about Archer, Lord Clearwater, and the creation of his foundational “crew;” the men who come to represent the values of the entire series: Honesty, Loyalty, and Love. The Larkspur books look at the young men brought to the Larkspur Academy, each raised up out of poverty and danger, where their talents can be given a chance to burgeon. (And, possibly, where they might find love.) The Delamere books, which I read first, look at the result of Archer Clearwater’s efforts in creating a London detective agency that looks out for those for whom justice in Victorian Great Britain is not always guaranteed. With each series, Lord Clearwater is removed slightly more into the background while other characters take the foreground.
In these two books (and Jackson Marsh promises more) we have the great pleasure of seeing the men from each of these three series together—in 1892 on a private train car; in 1893 marooned in an isolated train waystation. The gathered men get to know each other by telling stories—stories we haven’t heard before, but which are nonetheless related to the overarching story arcs we know. We finally learn Professor Barbary Fleet’s back story; and also Sir Easterby Cresswell’s backstory. In the second book, there is one totally new character introduced—and he serves to remind us of the ongoing importance of the Larkspur Academy once it leaves Cornwall and settles into Lady Marshall’s Stoneridge Castle in Hartfordshire.
The stories are all individually interesting and/or funny; but collectively they amplify the picture of Honesty, Loyalty, and Love that is the essential emotional current of the many books. I found myself weeping during both books. There’s some great stuff in here, mixed in with Jackson Marsh’s wonderful historical research, and his never-wavering quest to remind modern readers about the relentless poverty and the oppression of gay men that were hallmarks of British culture in Victoria’s reign.
Marsh’s work is a monument in modern gay literature (and I’ve been reading gay literature since the mid-1970s).
Five stars.
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
