Narrated by Cornell Collins

Any Old Diamonds is the first of two novels set in late Victorian England featuring a pair of jewel thieves known as the Lilywhite Boys, and in it, K.J. Charles relates a thoroughly entertaining story of murder, betrayal, revenge, intrigue… and love found in the unlikeliest of places.

Lord Alexander Greville de Keppel Pyne-ffoulkes, younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, has supported himself for the past eight years, working – as plain Alec Pine – as an illustrator for books and newspapers. As the son of one of the wealthiest men in the country it’s far from the life he was born to, but he and his older brother and two sisters were cut off by their father following a massive falling out that had been brewing for years. After their mother’s death, the duke married – with indecent haste – the woman with whom he’d been having an affair, and when Alec and his siblings refused to kowtow to the new duchess as their father demanded, he disowned them.

Since then,
Alec has lived quietly in London, but the recent death of his sister Cara after
the duke refused all requests for help in financing her medical treatment was
the last straw. As payback – for the duke’s treatment of all of them – he
hatches a plan to steal the hugely valuable (and vulgarly ostentatious) diamond
parure the duke has had made to present to the duchess on the occasion of their
twentieth anniversary – which is where the infamous Lilywhite Boys come in.

Jerry Crozier
and Templeton Lane aren’t at all what Alec had been expecting. Rather than a
pair of grubby ruffians, he’s met by a pair of well-spoken, well-groomed
men-about-town who quickly make it clear that they’ve done their homework on
him and his situation – and that if he wants to go ahead with the theft, he’s
signing up to play a long game in which he’ll have a part to enact, too. He’s
going to have to convincingly befriend Crozier in order to secure an invitation
for them both to Castle Speight for the anniversary celebrations, but the
hardest part will be keeping his plans a secret from his brother and sister and
allowing them to think that he’s gone crawling back to his father in hopes of
getting back into his good books.

Nervous but
determined, Alec embarks upon the first part of the plan, which is to strike up
a friendship with Crozier, whom he found rather intimidating at their first
meeting. Crozier is, by his own admission, not a good man, yet he’s also
confident, charming and, when it comes to Alec, extremely perceptive, recognising
what it’s costing him to keep his siblings in the dark and swallow his pride in
order to ingratiate himself with the duke. The two men are as different as
chalk and cheese, and their growing friendship is superbly done and obviously
real, coming to mean more to both of them than a means to an end. Their mutual
attraction is evident, too, the chemistry between them sparking fast and hot,
and leading to a number of steamy encounters during which Jerry is only too
pleased to accommodate Alec’s desire to submit to his control.

The plot is
intriguing and deftly put-together, but just when the audience thinks they’ve
got it all figured out, the author pulls the rug out from under our feet and
executes a masterful twist just after the half-way point which throws a very
different perspective on the story – and re-introduces us to the firm of
Braglewicz and Lazarus, enquiry agents, in the person of the formidable,
take-no-prisoners Susan (formerly Sukey) Lazarus. (Fans of the author will no
doubt appreciate – as I did – the shout-outs to characters from both the Sins of the Cities and Society of Gentlemen series, my
favourite being Susan’s remark about the fact that her guvnors have been
together for more than twenty years and haven’t stopped arguing yet! ;))

The romance
between Alec and Jerry is well developed, with both men able to see things in
each other that they had not perhaps realised about themselves – although
because the story is told entirely from Alec’s PoV, I found it a little bit
more difficult than I might otherwise have done to buy into Jerry’s emotional
commitment to Alec. The story ends on a very firm HFN, and Jerry’s feelings are
made very clear by his actions in the last few chapters, so maybe I’m just
being greedy – but I missed Jerry’s PoV.

Cornell Collins once again delivers an
enjoyable and insightful performance that expertly captures the essence of the
two leads and also provides effective portrayals of the secondary and minor characters.
The higher pitch and (sometimes) hesitant delivery he assigns to Alec quickly
and clearly establish him as a young gentleman who isn’t always that sure of
himself, while the deeper tones and darker timbre of Jerry’s voice provide an
excellent contrast as well as showing his confidence and greater experience. I
was especially impressed with the way Mr. Collins conveys Jerry’s ability to
slip into different personas, from the urbane gentleman whom Alec befriends, to
the sharper, more dangerous man who delivers a brutal beating to a would-be
blackmailer. And because the narrator does such a good job when it comes to
communicating the emotional connection building between the leads, it goes some
way towards compensating for the lack of the second PoV. I also really liked
his portrayal of Susan; her tenacity and determination come through in her
cockney-accented speech and waspish delivery, marking her as a woman most
definitely not to be messed with!

Any
Old Diamonds is clever, witty and sexy; a real gem
of a story combined with an excellent performance, it’s a sure-fire winner.