THE SUGARED GAME, second of three Will Darling gay spy adventures, and TO TRUST MAN ON HIS OATH, its coda

THE SUGARED GAME
K.J. CHARLES (Will Darling Adventures #2)
KJC BOOKS (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded down because even though we went alllllmost a whole MM romantic mystery without a single w-bomb splattering my Imperial aesthetic hems, there the bastard was, so call it four...well, no, leave it at four-and-a-half stars because it was bloody good fun

The Publisher Says: It's been two months since Will Darling saw Kim Secretan, and he doesn't expect to see him again. What do a rough and ready soldier-turned-bookseller and a disgraced shady aristocrat have to do with each other anyway?

But when Will encounters a face from the past in a disreputable nightclub, Kim turns up, as shifty, unreliable, and irresistible as ever. And before Will knows it, he's been dragged back into Kim's shadowy world of secrets, criminal conspiracies, and underhand dealings.

This time, though, things are underhanded even by Kim standards. This time, the danger is too close to home. And if Will and Kim can't find common ground against unseen enemies, they risk losing everything.

MY YOUNG GENTLEMAN CALLER KNOWS TO BUY ME EVERY RELEASE FROM THIS AUTHOR. HE IS THE BEST.

My Review: I did not see the ending coming. It's very hard to fool someone who's been reading as long as I have about something this central to the story for two whole books. I am clearly a sociopath because, as the finale debuted in the theatre (note misspelling intentional) of my mind I, the audience, was on my (mental) feet shouting for more gore. Gore there is, be forewarned.

But oh how satisfyingly deployed.

In my review of Slippery Creatures, I commented that the story resembled Notorious (Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant {who is the perfect model of Kim Secretan IMO}, Nazi spies) only with 1940s hunk Steve Cochran (my mental casting director's choice for Will Darling) in the Bergman role.

This time, as Richard Hannay is directly referenced in the text of the story, I thought of The Three Hostages because we're doing a similar amount of worry about and protecting people from unseen assailants and malefactors. But honestly, I say seek your parallel in the twists and turns, the puppetmaster-pulling-strings artfulness of North by Northwest. The hostages, their fates, the supporting characters' various interrelationships...similar enough that I kept picturing Will in Eva Marie Saint's wardrobe.

I will say that it was a tad disturbing. Nothing compared to what Will would've thought of it, of course.

This outing is more, shall we say, meaty than the first...we're starting from what every lover dreads, being ghosted by the belovèd:

“Don’t look at me,” Will said. “I’ve no idea what he’s up to. I haven’t heard from him since I don’t know when.”

He knew exactly when: the second of January. It was currently the twenty-second of February. That was a sore point he had no desire at all to discuss, so he added, “I’m not sure if he ever uses the title. It’s not compulsory, is it, if it’s one of those whatsits?”

–and–

Will wasn’t a country girl, courted and cast aside by a London seducer, and it would not do to give the impression that he felt jilted. Kim’s demeanour gave no indication of regret, still less a desire to resume relations, and Will was damned if he’d embarrass himself by behaving differently.

Only you very much are, Will, you're in love so far out of your league it isn't remotely funny. The wonderful part is that, unlike the incredibly unrealistic plot of Maurice, we're not left wondering what on Earth the two of you will talk about the twenty-two hours a day you're not actually fucking. And Kim's world has already cast him out, to the edges and fringes at least if not all the way out, so there's little danger of you having the awful luck of attending too many of the parties that Author Charles skewers so beautifully in this story...and where Will acquits himself creditably, if not brilliantly, all to serve his mate Maisie as she and Phoebe, Kim's fiancée and Will's friend, start Maisie's rise in the World of Fashion:

"...You need to dress for your own body, not pretend you’ve someone else’s, don’t you think?” (Quite revolutionary, Maisie!)

–and–

“I don’t know how to break it to you, dear boy, but if Maisie pursues a career in fashion, she is likely to meet people of the homosexual or sapphic persuasions. Try not to be shocked.”

“So?”

“So Phoebe thought she should learn to react in an environment where a misstep wouldn’t hurt. As it turned out, she is sure-footed, and a quick study. I see why you both like her so much. I’d like to know her better myself.”

From Kim, that is the highest praise imaginable! And it makes me think more of him as Maisie is the simplest kind of person to underestimate: The honest, forthright, always-herself good-mannered cheerful soul. It doesn't do to underestimate them, yet people so often do. And here's very aristocratic Kim, son of a marquess, seeing her and valuing her appropriately. I enjoy that facet of the character quite a lot. It's of a piece with his genuine, growing love for Will. Who, need I mention, is utterly in love with Kim. Being men, things aren't great in the communication department...but the sex is smokin' so the connection is there.

Ahhh...so, about the sex...yep, it's there and belongs there. It is decidedly not straight-people friendly. You know your own tolerance for reading about sex, listen to your instincts. If you're willing to be adventurous, this series will definitely reward you with a cracking good spy story and a couple seeking their happiness in spite of a hostile world...which does not include any of the people that matter the most to them.

In this entry the stakes for Will and Kim are astronomical and the results are long-lastingly resonant. They're required, in the course of resolving the matter of the first book's primary antagonists, to confront demons within and without human forms to which they each...both...have deep ties. It's clear that Kim possesses facts he isn't sharing, and while that can be good spycraft, it's unmitigated hell on relationships:

He didn’t delude himself that asking Kim to tell him the truth meant it would happen, either. They’d been honest with one another as far as it went, and that was something, maybe even a lot, but Will had a feeling all it had achieved was to dig their foxhole deeper.

–and–

“Go on, go,” he said. “Don’t come back. Keep your precious secrets if that’s all you care about, and leave me alone. This isn’t forgivable.”

Kim went. He didn’t even have the decency to give Will a fight or slink out shamefacedly; he just picked up his coat and hat and left. The door closed behind him, setting the bell jangling.

–and–

Will had more self-respect than to trail after him any more.

Horseshit. There is, in every love story, the moment when communication breaks down, both parties are backed up against different walls, and things are at an impasse. In that moment, one feels as though "The End" has appeared on the screen and it's time to gather one's detritus and toss it into the bin on the way out of the theatre. This is almost never true in real life, and pretty much never, ever in fiction. Self-respect and being in love are two ends of one balance beam only in the most simplistic stories, and Author Charles does not traffic in those.

But, as usual, it takes Very Very High Stakes to overcome the grumpy pride of men and compel them to reassert their pair bond. The stakes in this story, which were already quite high, elevate to existential-threat levels. There is so very much riding on Kim getting this issue, the one from last book, resolved...so very much for the men, for their found family, for the U.K. as a whole...that the savvy reader knows the price for Kim will be high. Will, given the choice of what to do and how to do it:

“Do you know Lepanto?”

“The Chesterton poem?”

“There was a bit I was trying to remember...I looked it up afterwards. ‘Dim drums throbbing in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where risen from a doubtful seat and half-attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall.’”

Kim’s lips parted. Will held his eyes, willing him to believe. “That’s you.”

–and–

“I,” Kim began at last, and had to try again. “I would like to be—not alone.”

“Shoulders right here. Suitable for leaning on, crying on, or standing at for the purposes of a fight.”

Have you ever, in all your born days, heard a more moving, more vivid and intensely felt, declaration of love than that? This is the spine-stiffening speech, the statement of commitment, that Will uses to arm Kim for a confrontation his entire lifetime's worth of guilt and insecuritites tells him he can only lose.

It's no spoiler to say that Kim and Will prevail...it's a series! this is two of three!...but there are the necessary costs to the men. They are deep, painful extractions of value, they are seriously out of proportion to the success the men have delivered, and they are going to lead to a fireball of a series-ending book three, Subtle Blood.

...if only she hadn't befouled the experience with that w-bomb at 89%/page 214....

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TO TRUST MAN ON HIS OATH
K.J. CHARLES (Will Darling Adventures #2.5)
Author's website
Free PDF download

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A Will Darling Adventures interlude.

Set a week after the ending of The Sugared Game (so contains mild spoilers for that book).

My Review: It's important to understanding the gestalt of Will and Kim to read this short piece. It feels to me like it was clipped off the end of the book, and made into its own thing, instead of being the epilogue it feels to me like it should've been.

I was very moved by the sweetness of Will's acceptance of Kim's faults, amply displayed in previous instalments of the series; and his acceptance of Kim's worthiness of trust. It takes a lot to expose your vulnerability to someone whose track record of treating you is spotty on the plus side. Importantly, though, Will acknowledges that Kim has always come through when the stakes are high and the situation is grave.

I'm also very moved by the way the author frames the conversation, as it accords well with what I know of biphasic sleep: a period of wakefulness in the middle of one's night that disinhibits the usual censorship functions, that allows one's conversation to open doors and breach walls that seem impossible during ordinary daytime. Then, when the needful things are said, sleep returns and the day that dawns, dawns brighter than it would have otherwise.

I was charmed; I was also better prepared for Subtle Blood, so I recommend the read to you, too.