An enjoyable jigsaw puzzle in the Holmes tradition, with gothic thrills and a dash of romance.
The world’s most famous detective must outwit her nemesis in Victorian Cornwall.
Thomas' series continues with the life of Charlotte Holmes, the woman detective masquerading as her fictitious brother, Sherlock, shortly after the events of Murder on Cold Street (2020). While Charlotte; her lover, Lord Ingram; her companion, Mrs. Watson; and her sister, Olivia, are hoping they haven’t riled Moriarty, the hope is soon dashed. The feared criminal mastermind, calling himself Mr. Baxter, wants Charlotte to take on a case involving his wayward daughter, who has secreted herself at a religious retreat in Cornwall. But is that all he has in mind? Left no real choice, Charlotte & Co. begin their investigations into Miss Baxter as well as into Olivia’s sweetheart, Mr. Marbleton, whom Moriarty has coerced back into his web. Tense and atmospherically rich, particularly in the Cornwall chapters, the novel is interspersed with brief scenes of Charlotte and Ingram’s new intimacy, including some chuckle-inducing letters. Thomas counts on readers being familiar with the way Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Holmes’ confrontation with Moriarty in "The Final Problem," but she provides a new (female solidarity) twist to get to that point rather than keeping us guessing about how she's going to adapt the famous ending. It’s an interesting application of the romance-genre structure, in which the predictable climax is less important than the journey toward it—something Thomas knows well as a romance author—but the way she sets up the twist and the ending by switching the point of view to a minor character is a bit clunky. Charlotte herself appears less like the neurodiverse character she's been established to be in previous novels, but her love for food and her loose allegiance to social mores and role-playing are still charming.
An enjoyable jigsaw puzzle in the Holmes tradition, with gothic thrills and a dash of romance.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593200-58-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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