The only Jeeves novel not to feature Bertie, and it's a bit odd. Granted, the Jeeves books only take up about 15% of Wodehouse's literary oeuvre, so there's no reason why I should expect them all to be consistent, yet it's intriguing how much the loss of Bertie's narrative voice really does affect the novel.

Instead, Jeeves is temporarily servant to another man, and this is one of Wodehouse's typical country house comedies of errors. His trademark turns of phrase are as funny as ever, and he shows perhaps a greater analysis of character motivations than we usually see in the Jeeves or Blandings canons, where most of the characters are deliberately farcical.

Still, I must admit it's slightly unusual to read, since this just isn't the funniest of Wodehouse's works. It's more a breezy little character piece, but I ultimately don't think that was Wodehouse's greatest strength. It's a confection, and really you shouldn't read too much at once without feeling light-headed. Without Bertie Wooster's narrative voice to distress and bamboozle us, our knowledge that Jeeves will save the day somewhat ruins the low dramatic stakes. (Indeed, some of the business in the book's second act - where Jeeves becomes almost exclusively a classical literature quotation machine - borders on self-parody.)

Not a bad book at all, and indeed things liven up in the third act when Wodehouse really goes out guns a-blazing. Still, a trifle odd! ( )

Fun to read and I was sad to realise that I was checking out of Blandings and leaving my oddball companions as the pages compressed.
N. B. This volume does not contain a third book "Heavy Weather". ( )

Nice departure for Wodehouse. In this book he portrays the penury of the post-war British landed aristocracy and contrasts it with the affluence of the American widow for humourous effect. The book is in the third person, as Bertie is temporarily absent from the tale. This frees the author to go into his subject a little more deeply without jarring the reader too much, as a Bertie fallen from affluence would be a very helpless Bertie. Also, Jeeves gets to unleash his quotations and general encyclopedic knowledge yet more freely than in Bertie's company, to a subtly different, but still very humourous effect.

The reading by Nigel Lambert was outstanding. The accent he put on for the American widow was remarkable but pleasing; he manages to work an "r" into "applesauce" where I did not expect it. ( )

An interesting entry in the Jeeves series in that Bertie Wooster is absent - he has lent Jeeves to Bill, the ninth Earl of Rowcester (pronounced Roaster). ( )

I am shocked by the number of negative reviews of this book by self-professed Wodehouseans here. So shocked that if I were the great man himself, you'd be likely to see an eyebrow of mine raised at least a sixteenth of an inch in response. Yes, the lack of dear Bertie Wooster's wit and schmoozy charm is unfortunate, but the ad hoc cast old P. G. summoned in Bertie's absence does a good job. I liked Bill "Billiken" Towcester (it seems some editions introduce him as Rowcester as in "rooster"; he is firmly Towcester as in "toaster" in my copy), the big game hunter Beggar, the multiple-surnamed American millionairess, and was even able to tolerate Bill's bozo of a brother-in-law, Sir Roderick, at times. I disagree with anyone writing that Jeeves was not himself in this volume; I found him to be well-stocked with his typical traits hyperintelligent cunning and English butlerly sangfroid -- two things that are handy to have in a jam, and this book certainly abounds in satisfyingly resolved jams, as any good Wodehouse should. ( )