From London with Love is a High Concept novel: Charlie’s Angels in Regency England. And while there are some slight differences – the Bosley character is the one named “Charlie” and the mysterious never-seen-string-puller Charlie is now the mysterious never-seen-string-puller “Lady M.” – the story proved to be just as inane and just as eye-roll inducing as I had feared.

Three titled young widows of the ton are recruited and trained to be spies for England. The widow du jour is Meredith Sinclair who has been chosen to investigate Tristan Archer, the Marquess of Carmichael, because of a shared past. Meredith and Tristan were childhood friends through her cousins. As teenagers they were well on their way to falling in love when Tristan saved her from being attacked by a ruffian bent on rape. Tristan almost lost control and killed her attacker and so decided that he could never let himself go like that again, that his feelings for Meredith were too strong. He has avoided, though never forgotten, her ever since. Talk about a silly separation plot contrivance. I actually wrote in my notes, “Oh, pfft!”

Tristan has been acting oddly since his younger brother died in the war; he has been keeping company with Devlin, a person suspected of nefarious doings, and he has shown interest in purchasing a painting at an art gallery, a painting through which treasonous messages are suspected of being passed. Somehow. It’s not well explained. But it is enough to convince Lady M. and Charlie that Tristan is up to No Good and must be involved in treason. Why they don’t decide to investigate Devlin – a known rotter – instead of Tristan – a man of heretofore impeccable behavior – I don’t know. Oh yeah, right. Meredith doesn’t have a Past with Devlin.

Meredith renews her acquaintance with Tristan at a party. She can tell that he has Secrets, and so wrangles an invitation from Tristan’s mother to their house party to investigate. In the country, Meredith snoops and Tristan – who is, of course, performing his own investigation of Devlin in an attempt to tie him to the treason that led to his brother’s death – tries to avoid her and they both engage in an excess of lust-think. They also indulge in violent fits of jealousy whenever the other is in company with a member of the opposite sex. “She [Meredith] could have scratched her eyes out and never thought twice about it.” When Devlin inquires as to Meredith’s availability, “A red curtain of pure rage slid in front of Tristan’s vision … He wanted to tear Devlin apart, dangle him over the balcony until he squealed like the pig he truly was. He wanted to destroy him.” Goodness.

But the whole book is like this. Every event, every emotion is writ large and writ often. We are left in no doubt as to what plot points or feelings Petersen thinks are important for they are repeated repeatedly. Meredith must muse on the importance of getting her hands on a certain letter at least twenty times. She feels guilt over every instance of kindness from Tristan’s mother. Meredith even gets physically nauseous – more than once – when she finds Tristan doing something suspicious. It is all a bit much. There is nothing at all subtle about Petersen’s writing and I really came to resent how stupid she must think her readers are.

I also never felt any connection between Tristan and Meredith. There were no scenes of them together as children, nothing that could help convince me that they still felt anything for each other during the time they were apart – nothing that made me believe that seeing each other again after all those years that would cause the immediate flare up of lust and love. Petersen says there is a foundation for it in their childhood and in his saving of her life, but we never see it, and I never believed it. And I saw nothing in their present actions to make me believe that their love was genuine either.

It took me more than a week to finish From London with Love and I cannot think of a single thing I liked about it. I found it to be boring and preposterous. My most positive feeling associated with reading it was the relief I felt when I finally finished it. I will not be reading the sequels.