The Diamond Device by M.H. ThaungMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Picked this up free at Glasgow 2024.
The Diamond Device is a fun steampunk adventure? Mystery? thingamabob. Genre definitions are hard. There are British class vibes (impoverished lord trying to pretend he's doing fine, his last household servant is more loyal to him and his family than to her own friends), cosy mystery vibes (neither Alf Wilson nor Richard Hayes are detectives, and yet they must help the police solve this mystery without creating an international disaster), and all round fun shenanigans.
Alf Wilson is pulled into a lot of things he doesn't want to do out of a sense of duty and honour, and overwhelming concern for his sister and mother. Lord Richard Hayes is desperately trying to find enough money to pay his property taxes whilst pretending that everything is fine! And obviously getting a job is not going to cut it, just because of his title. It makes for a very interesting pairing as they both try to navigate each other's foibles.
The Diamond Device was a breeze to read, and I was captured from the start. The plot is twisty enough to keep you on your toes - you think the kidnapping is solved at the 50% mark, but ohoho! More complications crop up!
The one thing that didn't quite sit well was the Hayes' parents very odd lack of concern for him. In some ways, it felt inevitable that they would have to come appear sometime, but after all the explanations, I found myself going, "You knew all that and yet you just... didn't do anything?"
It also felt like Richard accepted their reasoning much too easily and calmly, like, sure, everything's fine now because he found them again.
Anyway, there is book 2 (The Sapphire Solution) so I may proceed on to that after I'm done with my current read.
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