Where Charlotte Solves a Murder on Board

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is excellent.

I love me some good Sherlock pastiche of any kind, and this series has been consistently good. A few times in the previous books I've lamented the focus drifting a bit from Charlotte (the sort-of Sherlock in this series) and her brilliant work--"Charlotte being awesome," as I think of it--to her sister or the bad guys or whatever, and that's fine, but I really prefer lots of Charlotte. I'm very happy that she's front and center here.

There are other people doing things, of course, especially in the first half, but from that point on we get more and more of her insight and sharpness, and that's what I'm here for. We have a kind of Death on the Nile situation, with a murder on a ship traveling to Gibraltar being solved by an inspector who happens to be on board. The movements of various people on that fateful night are gradually revealed, along with their concerns and motivations and relationships. That level of detail can be overwhelming, but it's well handled here, and the resolution and explanation are very good.

This is a lot of fun. Great mystery, well told, lots of Charlotte being awesome: all the stars. There's also a bit of love interest, a bit of a young woman asserting her independence, and friends helping friends. It's a great time.

Recommended for all right-thinking people.

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Where Charlotte Fences With Moriarty

Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another good installment in one of my favorite series. This was a well-written, fun book, and it's recommended along with all the others.

Not quite as awesome as the rest of the series, IMO, so a 4 instead of 5; it got a bit slow in the middle third. But the last third or so is really great again. And I like the ending.

Charlotte Holmes, who the world thinks works for her brother Sherlock (who doesn't exist), has gotten increasingly embroiled with Moriarty, pretty much by accident, in the last few books. He doesn't have her full story and is watching her, but Charlotte knows she's in danger. Now Moriarty himself is tasking her to check on his daughter in a sort of religious retreat quite a ways from London. Whether his daughter is really alive is a mystery; whether he intends to do Charlotte and her friends harm is another mystery; what exactly is going on at the little cultish enclave is another. And all of it gets tied up in one story by the end.

I regret a little that Moriarty features so much in the story now. Brittany Cavallaro's Charlotte Holmes series (where she's a descendant of the real Sherlock, set in the present) is also a lot of fun, and it's fantastic to a point, but it gets weighed down by focusing on Moriarty and the enmity between them. They're so evenly matched that the story almost stops. That series becomes more like spy-versus-spy than a detective story, and I lost interest. There's a similar dynamic in this book. You want to see Charlotte be awesome, solving some mystery, being smarter than everyone else, but it's less fun when she's facing someone just as smart. (I hated this in Iron Man, too; the MC invents a cool iron suit that flies, giving him this interesting advantage over criminals, and the first thing the screenwriters do is give him a bad guy with the same suit, negating everything cool about him. One of the early Superman movies did the same thing.)

It's still a fun book, and there are lots of great surprises; I'd just rather see Charlotte go up against regular people and stump them with her amazing brain. That's more fun for me.

YMMV.

But to sum up--I still liked it and it's still recommended. Lots of fun. I'm ready for the next one.

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Where Charlotte Holmes Helps Change Minds

Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the fifth book in a very entertaining series.

Charlotte Holmes, who pretends to have a brother named Sherlock who she works with, is one of the best creations of popular literature. She's a brilliant, independent, free-thinker who knows what she wants and isn't abashed by her physical nature--whether it's desiring the attentions of Lord Ingram, wearing shocking clothes, or wanting more cake. Watching the people around her, especially the men, coming to terms with the world the way she sees it is really interesting.

An inspector acquaintance is the main suspect in a pair of murders here, and it's Charlotte's job (with some help) to prove he didn't do it. The man's wife, Mrs. Treadles, has inherited a manufacturing business, and her dealings with the uncooperative men there is a cool subplot that has bearing on the main plot. (Mr. Treadles, the inspector, was not too keen on his wife taking over the work at the business, either, but we see him coming around, in much the same way that people who know Charlotte start to see her as a capable person, not just a "woman" in the limited sense of the time.) The solution of the mystery includes a lot of digging into people's lives, but one of Charlotte's delightful quirks is how she is entirely unbothered by the peccadilloes and sensitive personal details that so captivated society at that time.

This is a fun mystery as well as a pleasant time spent with a number of terrific characters. Highly recommended for Sherlock fans and historical mystery fans.

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Where Holmes Needs her Watson

The Case for Jamie by Brittany Cavallaro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was pretty good, but it wasn't what I hoped.

I loved the first book and still liked the second, but this was harder to get through. Because I really enjoyed the last 50 or 100 pages, I'll probably find book four and read it, but before I got to that point I wasn't feeling it. I was about to put the whole series on my "to trade in" pile.

Here's what I want (as if anyone asked me) from this pair: I want to see a Holmes (Charlotte, in this case) being awesome, using knowledge and focus and intuition to solve complex problems; I want to see a Watson (Jamie, in this case) being a loyal friend, supportive and useful, an extra pair of hands; and I want to see them solve an interesting case. Additionally, I think it's fun in this version of Watson and Holmes to see more of their youthful romance. That's not the book we got, though. We do get a little of the romance, especially in the last pages, so check, but there is not much of Holmes being awesome, Watson being useful, or a mystery being solved. It's really more of a spy vs. spy story like the second book, which can be cool, but when they're both super spies (Holmes and Moriarty), they neutralize each other's strengths so much that it's just not as cool.

Most of the book has the two main character separated and out of communication, with almost everything happening inside their heads. Ruminations. Recriminations. Reflections. It was WB-like YA drama slowed to a crawl. (The writing is uniformly fantastic, however; even when I didn't care about Jamie's current girlfriend wanting to argue with him, or Jamie struggling with his classes, I found the writing compelling. It is clever and insightful and often surprising.)

From the point that Jamie's mom wants to have dinner and share unexpected news (avoiding a spoiler here) and Watson and Holmes finally meet up, the novel is super fun. That's just the last 20%, unfortunately. That part's good enough I can almost forgive the novel for the first 80%, even though it took me weeks to push through.

I dunno. I really liked the first book. I loved the dynamic. But I'm not feeling it right now. I will probably get the 4th book and leave it on my shelf for a really long time before I open it.

But that's just me. Other people loved it. You might, too.

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An Art Heist in France

The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoy these books, and I think they only get better. This is the 4th in the series, with each novel its own story while following a larger arc, and the twin paths work well.

Charlotte Holmes is a great character as well as a wonderful invention by Sherry Thomas. Of course, she owes a great deal to the original Sherlock, and Charlotte definitely follows in the Holmes tradition, but she's also her own person, making a wonderful MC. Of course she's intelligent, logical, inventive, confident, and socially awkward to a degree, but she's also loving (in her own way) and kind and vulnerable, with interesting and quirky traits that round her out to a whole person. Her relationship with Lord Ingram, who is himself complex and interesting, is a big part of the overarching story arc, which I find entertaining and appropriately frustrating. He assists Charlotte in solving crimes, and is capable in ways that complement her abilities, and though their partnership makes the story diverge quite a bit from the original Sherlock/Watson blueprint, it's a crucial part of the series and central to the success of the stories, IMO.

Book 4 is more of a heist or caper than a straight mystery, which is fun, and what makes it really come alive is the ensemble. In addition to Charlotte and Lord Ingram, we have Charlotte's sister, Livia; her love interest, Stephen Marbleton, who's on the run from Moriarty; Mrs. Watson, a well-off widow; an Indian noblewoman, who Mrs. Watson once had a long affair with; and Lieutenant Atwood, an intelligence officer friend of Lord Ingram's. These characters are not just present; they all take part in important ways, many of them serving as POV characters at different times, and their voices and distinct personalities are maintained in such a way that nobody fades into the background. No one is superfluous; no one is indistinguishable. It's really well done.

I'm eager to read the next. Recommended.

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