RogerBW's Blog

Miss Moriarty, I Presume?, Sherry Thomas 25 January 2022

2021 mystery story, sixth of the Lady Sherlock series. Charlotte Holmes finds herself employed by Moriarty himself, to investigate the situation of his estranged daughter. But nothing is as it appears.

There are side stories as well, because this is a series with a substantial cast most of whom have their own plots going on, but mostly this is Charlotte and Lord Ingram investigating a group of "Hermetists", i.e. occult believers in the days just before the Golden Dawn. (In fact this is set in 1887, about when that organisation was founded by splitters from the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia; and unlike the real occult organisations of that date, it is neither an offshoot of Freemasonry nor trying to appear Christian. Which is a bit out of place – a well-informed time-traveller would certainly be put on the alert – but doesn't break the story.)

And it's a good puzzle, where even the number of factions in play is not at all clear, until it gets to the Big Deception – carefully heralded for the hard of thinking by a change of viewpoint, just in case you might fall for the lie that's very clearly being deliberately promulgated and be briefly made anxious before it's all explained. (Arthur bruised his upper arm.) It seems like an awful lot of setting-up to do for a false narrative that someone as clever as Moriarty has been shown to be wouldn't fall for for an instant, but apparently that's what we're meant to believe; I do hope that the next volume shows that it didn't work for an instant.

So the ending was a bit of a disappointment for me, but the earlier chapters stand up well, with a blend of progress for the principal characters with puzzles of personality more than of evidence. Definitely not a stand-alone book, though: previous books are important for background, and there are plenty of loose ends.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Murder on Cold Street | Series: Lady Sherlock | Next in series: A Tempest At Sea

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1