The Unsavory Whims of Unlikely Gentlemen
(2026)(Book 2.5 in the My Darling Malady series)
A novel by Briar Somerset
An Interlude Novelette (My Darling Malady Book 2.5), for fans of Critical Role's Candela Obscura and Rusty Quill UK’s The Magnus Archives.
Paris, 1844. Five years before his fated journey to London, 27 year-old Jacques Valmont is a law student at the Université de Paris’s Faculté de Droit. Son of the scandalized Étienne Valmont—renounced noble and famed private investigator all the same—and grandson of the late Comte de Valmont, Jacques has been trained to trust only what can be proven in good conscience and plainness to the human eye.
When his classmate Andrew claims to have seen his recently deceased uncle—adjunct professor of Comparative Anatomy, Dr William Callow—walking the Luxembourg Gardens, no one believes him. Not his peers, nor the parish, and certainly not Jacques. In fact, the only thing compelling Jacques to accept the case at his father’s urging is the authorities’ curt dismissal of Andrew; if there’s one thing he abhors more than the follies of the occult, it is the moral corruption of police and politician alike.
What begins as an inquiry set in motion during a night at the theatre draws Jacques and Étienne across campus and into a sealed house, where they discover the remnants of a disgruntled professor's research. Records are orderly, conclusions anything but precise.
Omissions, however, are much more difficult to account for.
Coming to e-book and audio Winter 2026.
Genre: Mystery
Paris, 1844. Five years before his fated journey to London, 27 year-old Jacques Valmont is a law student at the Université de Paris’s Faculté de Droit. Son of the scandalized Étienne Valmont—renounced noble and famed private investigator all the same—and grandson of the late Comte de Valmont, Jacques has been trained to trust only what can be proven in good conscience and plainness to the human eye.
When his classmate Andrew claims to have seen his recently deceased uncle—adjunct professor of Comparative Anatomy, Dr William Callow—walking the Luxembourg Gardens, no one believes him. Not his peers, nor the parish, and certainly not Jacques. In fact, the only thing compelling Jacques to accept the case at his father’s urging is the authorities’ curt dismissal of Andrew; if there’s one thing he abhors more than the follies of the occult, it is the moral corruption of police and politician alike.
What begins as an inquiry set in motion during a night at the theatre draws Jacques and Étienne across campus and into a sealed house, where they discover the remnants of a disgruntled professor's research. Records are orderly, conclusions anything but precise.
Omissions, however, are much more difficult to account for.
Coming to e-book and audio Winter 2026.
Genre: Mystery