Series: Lady Sherlock #2

After enjoying the first one so much, I felt like Halloween Bingo gave me a good excuse to dive right into the second one. This one ended up being all spies and agents and codes, but there was a murder thrown in there so that's the square I'm going to be using this for.

I have to say that I really enjoy reading about Charlotte. There's just something that I like about her. I could have done without being treated to the details of Livia's literary pursuits, however. It comes across as trying too hard to wrap everything into the Sherlock Holmes mythos, and I find it unnecessary. 

It looks like the third book will be out early October, but since I've been enjoying the audio so much, I'm not sure if my library will have the audio soon enough for me to use it for Halloween Bingo. I must be running out of possible squares for these books anyway, shouldn't I?

I'm counting this for the "Murder Most Foul" square.

Previous updates:

100 %

Done!

Now I just need to decide whether to count it for the "Terrifying Women" square or the "Darkest London" square. I did have something else initially pegged for Darkest London, but this would work for it too... Or it would also work for "Murder Most Foul". I don't think I had explicitly chosen a book for that, just a few possibilities...

Decisions, decisions.

I am really digging this cozy mystery series. Too bad it looks like it stops after four books. It's easy enough to get through in a few hours (I finished this in like 2 and a half with snack breaks included).

In the first book in the series, we have Cassie Coburn (our Watson) is still going through some depressive episodes. After being injured and unable to continue her medical career, her relocating to London is starting to do the trick though. When she's called up in the middle of the night by Violet Despuis (our Sherlock) she starts to feel her juices going again. The twosome investigate when two children of a prominent ambassador are found dead. All signs point to murder and Cassie and Violet have their hands full working for/against the Triads as well as thumbing their nose at MI-5. 

Cassie is a great character to root for. I do wish that we had seen her following up with her mother in this one though. Besides being worried about her adopted cat, she doesn't have a lot going on. I do like her friendship with Brianne as well. I am wondering if Silver has plans to have Cassie going into teaching or something. Even though she can't be a surgeon anymore, it definitely seems like she has a lot to still offer the medical community besides giving Violet the rundown on dead bodies. 

Silver does a good job with research on art in this book. I was fascinated by the history of painters using the color white in their works. I also thought the solution was clever and got a kick at seeing Violet show up MI-5. 

The setting of London is used very well and we get to read some about London's Chinatown. I also loved we have Violet and Cassie visiting a museum with Violet's descriptions of things as well. 

My biggest complaint though is that this book is short (it's only 212 pages) so I balked at spending $3.99 on this and even though I did like it, think it's too much. The next book is 204 pages for $3.99 and the final book is the shortest yet at 167 pages at $3.99 as well. So even though I enjoy this series, I am going to take a hard pass at buying the rest of the books in this series. 

Wow. I really enjoyed the first book and the second one was a disappointment compared to that. I think Thomas tried to bite off more than could be reasonably followed in this book. Maybe some of it could have been pushed to a third book. Having Charlotte Holmes and Mrs. Watson taking on cases, having Charlotte solving ciphers for Lord Bancroft, and the follow-up to Moriarty and the half-brother we heard about in the last book all thrown together didn't make for an engaging read. Don't even get me started on Inspector Treadles and his nonsense about women. The man goes around ticked that the brilliant Sherlock Holmes is Charlotte Holmes. And then is even more unhappy when his wife admits she wishes she could run her father's business. 

After the events in book #1, Charlotte and Mrs. Watson are still doing their detective business as Sherlock Holmes. However, things become awkward when Lord Ingram's wife comes asking for help in finding her first love. There's a lot of hand-waving away why Charlotte agrees to work on this case, but ultimately that case leads to a larger mystery that I didn't think was put together very well.

Charlotte is still quite good at deducting. But you do read a lot about what she eats, her tea, and how hungry she is at all times. Why Thomas switched Holmes addiction to Charlotte being an over-eater or glutton (I honestly don't know what she is doing with this) is baffling to me. She could have her addicted to something else and or just not at all. Since you already set up that Sherlock Holmes is not real, and that Charlotte's sister Olivia is going to write stories about the man, who cares that you try to mirror every little thing in those stories. 

I can't really get a handle on the other characters. Mrs. Watson barely felt in this one. We do have her teaching Charlotte about self defense which I liked. 

Olivia Holmes is in and out of this one. She's not really integral to the plot, but having her get romantic notions about someone that may be in danger made me just sigh. I am guessing based no how this book ends, he will pop up in the third book. 

Lord Ingram and Charlotte...I don't know. Due to the events in this book one wonders what will happen next. I actually liked the idea of Charlotte getting married to Lord Bancroft (have fun reading about what happens next). At least it would have moved the book to a different place than I think most readers would have expected.

The writing didn't grab me like in the first one and the flow was not good. The only parts I found interesting where getting Charlotte's and Mrs. Watson's POV. I would recommend Thomas cut down on the back and forths to Inspector Treadles in the next one. She could have left him out entirely and nothing would have been missed since he ends up just being a minor player in this. I think we only see him since he will have a larger role in book #3. 

The ending felt vaguely unsatisfactory since you have a lot of revelations that didn't quite make sense to me at all. I even re-read some of the sections again and just gave up. I think books like these have to leave clues that readers can pick up on as well. Otherwise it's not really fun to read. You just have the author throwing out twists. 

Wow. I am not liking this at all. I am bored to tears and this is just a mess of storytelling right now. It keeps jumping around and you can barely even understand what's going on with one character before it jumps to another. And why is Thomas so obsessed with spelling out everything Charlotte is eating at all times? It's taking me out of the story. Frankly I wish she had stuck with Holmes being addicted to drugs.