A multifaceted and convincing addition to Sherlock-ian lore.
Young Sherlock Holmes’ family comes together to exonerate an Indian princess suspected of murder in the second installment of Sherwood-Fabre’s historical mystery series.
Sherlock Holmes’ powers of observation and deductive reasoning are highlighted early on in Sherwood-Fabre’s second novel, which features the sleuth as a boy. When the family receives guests from abroad, Sherlock blurts out “India” before his uncle, Ernest, even finishes the introductions. One of the guests, Col. Herbert Williams, asks the boy to explain himself and Holmes replies, “Quite easily…your bearing indicates military service....Given your friendship with my uncle, the most obvious location would be India.” He alludes to the ring finger of the second guest, Meredith Cummings, as indicative of her being “recently engaged, but no longer,” a statement that elicits a signal from his mother to cease observing so closely. The idea that the ability to minutely scrutinize one’s environment could be a symptom of social awkwardness presents readers with an intriguing way to interpret Sherlock. Sherwood-Fabre also contextualizes the novel in the era of British imperialism—a prominent component of the story that moves the action forward. The mystery revolves around Chanda,an Indian princess disguised as Meredith’s servant, who becomes a suspect in the murder of a stranger whose clothing marks him as Romani; the killing of Takahashi Fusamoto,Sherlock’s Japanese martial arts instructor; and an assault on Meredith. Sherwood-Fabre adds further twists to the Holmes mythos by suggesting that Sherlock learned his initial crime-solving abilities from his mother. At one point, in order to analyze clues and secure Chanda’s release, she has the family meet in her sitting room, where “her bookshelf housed scientific treatises and...a microscope for her biological studies.” As they converse, she writes ideas on a blackboard, thus inviting comparisons to the leader of a modern homicide task force using visual clues and logic to connect disparate bits of evidence. Overall, Sherwood-Fabre’s reimagining of the famous detective ably expands the possibilities of the Holmes canon.
A multifaceted and convincing addition to Sherlock-ian lore.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little Elm Press
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Charming characters and settings make for a pleasant stop before trying your hand at the fudge recipes.
A kindhearted hotelier and fudge maker just can’t catch a break from murder.
Allie McMurphy is attending Mackinac Island’s first Midsummer Night’s Festival with her best friend, Jenn; her boyfriend, Rex Manning, a police officer; and her bichon-poo, Mal, when a fuss erupts over the disqualification of an entry in the competition to be named queen. On her way home with Mal, who’s afraid of the fireworks, Allie discovers the body of festival head Winona Higer, shot dead. This isn’t the first time Mal and Allie have found a corpse, and she’s developed a reputation for messing with murders, much to the displeasure of Rex, whose job description calls for him to solve Mackinac’s crimes. Despite being more than busy running her hotel and making fudge for her shop, Allie can’t resist a little snooping. The first suspects are naturally the family of the girl who was disqualified, but that kerfuffle seems a thin motive for murder. So does Winona’s argument with her gardener over her roses, which she thought he'd poisoned with the wrong fertilizer. Threatening notes to pageant judges precede another dead body, once again sniffed out by Mal. More shootings and break-ins raise the question of why the killer is targeting the festival judges. Or are these attacks just a series of red herrings to obscure a hidden motive? Allie needs to find the answer before she becomes the killer’s next victim.
Charming characters and settings make for a pleasant stop before trying your hand at the fudge recipes.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3553-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Plenty of hair-raising adventures combine with more cerebral pursuits in this enjoyable tale.
A murder on a train carries echoes of another fateful railroad trip.
Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Mike Sullivan, are in Chicago attending a conference. During a book restoration lecture on the last day, someone leaves a bag under Lindsey’s seat containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train inscribed from the author to Alfred Hitchcock, making it potentially very valuable. Lindsey turns it over to conference head Henry Standish, a man with a checkered past that’s earned him multiple enemies. Lindsey and Sully, along with Henry and many other conference participants, had taken a train from the East Coast to Chicago for the conference; now, as they settle into their roomette for the return trip, prospects for a pleasant ride turn sour when Lydia Armand—who took over Henry’s job after he was accused of fraud—turns up. That night, after some nasty verbal jousts, Lindsey hears thumping noises from the next compartment and sees a person shrouded in black in the passageway. The next morning, Henry is found murdered in his compartment. Upon the arrival of a dangerous snowstorm, the police remove passengers to a local inn near Briar Creek, Connecticut, Lindsey and Sully’s hometown, while they investigate. When the valuable book turns up in Lindsey’s laptop bag, she takes it to the police, while Sully, a boat captain, heads out in the storm to deliver food to nearby islands. Much to her consternation, Lindsey is unable to contact Sully, and a search discovers his boat drifting offshore. Clues from the boat indicate that Sully may have been spirited away, and Lindsey resolves to search for him while she seeks a motive for Standish’s murder.
Plenty of hair-raising adventures combine with more cerebral pursuits in this enjoyable tale.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593639337
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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