Here's a story that is new and unusual: one with a double interest. For while Miss Georgette Heyer has won a considerable reputation as a writer of historical novels such as "The Spanish Bride" and "An Infamous Army", she is equally well known for detective stories, as witness "Death in the Stocks". Now she unites her exceptional gifts in "The Quiet Gentleman" by giving us a mystery story in a Regency setting, and already this is considered to be the best of all her novels.
It is an intimate, family affair, yet with plenty of drama. Gervaise Frant, Seventh Earl of St. Erth, returns from the Battle of Waterloo to his family seat of Stanyon in Lincolnshire, and finds himself welcomed only by his cousin Theo, a gentleman as quiet as himself. From his stepmother and young half-brother he encounters hostility and an ill-concealed regret that he should have survived the wars.
There are plots and counter-plots to keep the reader on tiptoe: through it all runs a delightful romance with a sweetly practical heroine blessed with wit as well as beauty. This story is told with all the elegance, airs and graces of its period. There is plenty of excitement too: indeed Miss Heyer could scarcely have given her readers a fuller measure of good things, while those whi enjoy good writing may like to compare it with the Jane Austen novels.