So... going in, I expected this to be gratuitous M/M porn with a dash of detective mystery set in early 20th century British countryside - and I am for all of these things!

And... I mean... I guess technically that’s exactly what it is?

It’s pretty much just your standard porn that wanted to pretend to have a plotline, which can be okay if you’re into general cheesy porn plots where everyone is inexplicably gay and whipping their junk out within seconds of meeting - but in my opinion, it’s not even well done porn. It’s laughingly, appallingly bad. I read with a nervous laugh and a perpetual sense of secondhand embarrassment.

It’s the kind of bad that I can laugh at though and not the kind that makes me mad, so maybe two stars? 1.5? I don’t even know how to grade it. I’m not even entirely convinced that this book isn’t SUPPOSED to be bad. But even if I try to go at this as a book that’s supposed to JUST be smut, it’s still not that good; the sex scenes, of which there were MANY, happen with such frequency and wham bam efficiency that none of them are particularly that exciting or attractive, in my opinion.