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This tangled web is a step down from the first four Jeeves and Wooster novels in no small part because there isn't nearly enough Jeeves in the book. He makes cameo appearances throughout, but in many ways, this is really a Drones novel with Gussie Fink-Nottle and Catsmeat Pirbright playing significant roles. In the end, Jeeves makes his presence felt as the four couples involved all play their parts in the Mating Season. For me, this was a couple too far, but it did contribute to the mad cap quality of the book. In a sense, it feels like a Drones Club invasion of a Wodehouse country estate.

The other thing missing from the book aside from the finest gentleman's personal gentleman in literature is the constant smiles and laughs that usually find their way into every nook and cranny of a Wodehouse novel. There are solid moments to be sure but here they are more forced and less outright funny. To be fair there are two fine set pieces in the novel, one involves Bertie needing to pinch something and the other features a village variety show. These, along with a solid ending, are the best bits of the book and contribute to four stars instead of three.

As you might expect from four couples swirling through the novel there are plenty of occasions where the wrong male is with the wrong female and if the pairs aren't sorted Bertie might be betrothed. As if this weren't enough Bertie shows up at the old pile claiming to be Gussie Fink-Nottle and by hook or crook his friends must assume various names not their own. In a J&W novel especially one that is mostly W, the protagonist going about as FN makes life a bit confusing for the reader.

Quirks and oddities aside, this is an enjoyable read that if second-tier Sometimes Jeeves & Wooster is still better than the lion's share of comedy ever produced. Not the starting place in your Wodehouse reading but a solid slab in your read-through of the J&W novels.