#ThrowBookThursday – The Affair of the Porcelain Dog by Jess Faraday

I bumped into this hashtag on a virtual book club, and I loved it. The notion is instead of a Throwback Thursday photograph (which, like many queerfolk who were kicked to the curb, I don’t have beyond a certain date), you post a book you loved from back when. You all know how I feel about book reviews and bringing attention to missed gems, so…

With no further ado, first up a book released five years ago this month, from Jess Faraday.

The Affair of the Porcelain Dog, Jess Faraday

Released five years ago in paperback, I listened to this book and fell instantly in love with the characters.

My review from 2013:

I’m a lover of audiobooks. Even if I were able to physically read on the bus – I can’t, it makes me feel ill – there’s still something so incredibly wonderful about the spoken word, and the experience of listening to a great story being told. Usually, I do this to make the time pass by on the long trek to and from work, or when I’m doing something tedious like the laundry or dishes. For “The Affair of the Porcelain Dog” I was instead scurrying around, trying to find any excuse to be able to keep listening, and even wearing my ear-buds while I did routine stuff all the way to the moment I had to open the doors for the day.

I listened on my break. I listened on my lunch. I listened in the bath. I even got up early on the day of my closing shift so I’d have the two full hours of time I needed to finish the book before my work shift started.

In short? Jess Faraday’s “The Affair of the Porcelain Dog” was the best audiobook experience I’ve had in years. There are a few sides to that experience.

One, the writing was so completely engaging that I was happily drawn into the narrative from step one. The setting – a Holmes-era tale in London at it’s most coal-caked and financially stratified, “The Affair of the Porcelain Dog” is also Holmes-esque in its execution, pulling you into a mystery from the opening that is as steeped in the time and place and culture as it is in the richly drawn characters. The main voice, Ira Adler, is such a charming character even when he’s being selfish or spoiled that I was smitten instantly. An orphan and former rent-boy, Ira is living in luxury now at the beck and call – and bed – of Cain Goddard, who despite his genteel appearance is in fact a crime lord making most of his living off the legal opium trade. Ira, no slouch in the street arts of lock picking, pick pocketing, and capable of thieving with the best of them, is tasked by Goddard to recover the titular piece of artwork, which is both ugly and apparently contains a secret that could ruin Goddard, and bring Ira’s comfortable new life to an end. Of course, in a mystery as tightly drawn as this one, there are far more players than that – including the wonderfully written Timothy Lazarus, a giving clinic doctor who is after the same object d’art for his own friend – and Goddard’s rival. That Lazarus and Adler have a romantic entanglement in the past just adds to the joy in their interactions.

Two, the performance. Oh how Philip Battley narrated the heck out of this book! He took Jess Faraday’s amazing story and put such an incredible performance behind his reading. Every accent and every tone just burst with verisimilitude. It kills me that the search on his name over on audible only showed one other audiobook. I sincerely hope there’s more from him.

Third – and last – there weren’t compromises in the historical setting including gay characters. I rarely read historical gay fiction because so often the gay stuff sort of slides unnoticed among the rest of the tale. Somehow everyone the characters meet are happy and open-minded folks who understand these guys aren’t evil (despite religion, law, and everything about the current culture saying they are). That these men are gay is a huge factor to the story, but not in a way that doesn’t ring true.

Okay. I’m moving past reviewing and into gushing. Just trust me on this one. Read it or listen to it – I’m totally going to suggest you listen to it if you’re at all an audiobook lover – and rejoice in the fact that there’s a sequel, Turnbull House.

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I hope to continue #ThrowBookThursday. Let me know what you think of the idea, and—better yet—if you’d like to step in on a random Thursday to talk about a book from years ago, I’m happy to hand over the reins to someone being passionate about a book from years ago.