Mystery lovers will be pleased to have this whodunit, which is neither Victoriana nor steampunk
The brilliant daughter of Detective Sgt. Moriarty meets posh Sherlock Holmes, so obviously there will be murders.
Mori's got her hands full putting up with idiots at school, grieving her six-months-dead mum, and protecting her three younger brothers from their alcoholic and abusive father. Not so long ago, her family was happy: her dad spent time being manly with the boys, while Mori learned about martial arts and sleight of hand from her mother. With all that over, Mori has no intention of becoming friends with arrogant classmate Sherlock. Despite her best efforts to stay away from him, though, Mori fails. Both his intelligence and his affection for her are deeply compelling, and that's not to mention how interesting it is to be solving a murder with one of the few clever people she knows. When the crime they're investigating starts hitting too close to home—reminding Mori of her beloved mother's many secrets—she no longer wants Sherlock to be a part of her investigation. The story is set in present-day London and narrated affectingly by Mori. The conclusion leaves space for the fated collapse of the Holmes/Moriarty relationship in later series entries, putting a nice potential twist on the good girl–bad boy trend.
Mystery lovers will be pleased to have this whodunit, which is neither Victoriana nor steampunk . (Mystery. 13-15)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2303-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mori’s crackerjack characterization (balanced between appealing and appalling) and the tight pacing overcome this finale’s...
The origin of an antihero.
When readers first met Mori (Lock & Mori, 2015), it was hard to see how she’d eventually become the dreaded Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis. Didn’t this white teen solve crimes with her schoolmate, Lock? Hadn’t she defeated her abusive, serial killer father? But now Mori has spent the last four months locked in a horse stall. Alice, an old friend of Mori’s con-artist mother, the salvation she’d been convinced would rescue her younger brothers from abuse, turns out to have conned her. Alice wants Mori’s help restarting a criminal enterprise, and she holds her brothers hostage. When Mori gets out of this place—and she will escape—she’s going to make sure Alice can never hurt them again. Nothing, not even the disapproval and grief of her beloved Lock, will prevent Mori from utterly stopping the crooked cops and greedy thieves who’ve hurt her. Mori herself is such an engaging, well-rounded character that the villains’ incoherent choices seem even more cartoonish by contrast, but the cinematic tension of her final fall makes it hard to worry about flaws in the plotting. This isn’t a Sherlock Holmes mystery: this is the villain’s back story.
Mori’s crackerjack characterization (balanced between appealing and appalling) and the tight pacing overcome this finale’s weaknesses of plotting and prose . (Mystery. 13-15)Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-2309-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strong thread of the importance of female friendship makes this adventure rise above Marinda’s bland romance
A fantasy romance influenced by Hindu cosmology concludes its quest with exhaustive thoroughness.
In Sundari, a fantasy land with the flavor of the Indian subcontinent, Marinda spies on her former masters. Marinda was raised as a visha kanya, an assassin so packed with snake venom that she murders with a kiss. She’s now working for the Raja to bring down the followers of the Snake King, who’d almost succeeded in sacrificing Marinda’s beloved baby brother to their god. The machinations of the Naga leave her exhausted. Marinda’s old friend Iyla is here as well, and she also claims to be working for the Naga. Is she double-crossing the Snake King or triple-crossing Marinda? In first-person chapters from both Marinda’s and Iyla’s points of view the two girls navigate their desire to do right, their love for one another, their history of betrayal, and their romances with two handsome young men outside the Naga. Marinda learns to speak with serpents, while Iyla discovers the gods made manifest in human form. Uneven worldbuilding diminishes the coherence of this mostly preindustrial, mostly desi society, and a tidy resolution sweeps away any magical messiness in favor of uncomplicated smooches.
A strong thread of the importance of female friendship makes this adventure rise above Marinda’s bland romance . (Fantasy. 13-15)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-93786-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
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