This was charming and sweet, despite the bitterness in Mori's life: James Morality is reimagined as not only a teen girl, a rival of Sherlock Holmes as far as intellect goes, but also as a heroine in her own right. This means something right off the bat to Sherlock Holmes purists: this book will not be for them. I was also entranced by how entrenched Holmes is in our society's consciousness. This story could have been told with new characters, but part of me suspects I'd resort to the thinking of Mary Sue. (I would have loved this book nonetheless; I love Bishop's book and she shamefully, gleefully writes Mary Sues. And guys, Batman being the biggest Mary Sue ever doesn't stop him from selling everything.)
That being said, I feel like there was a lot of fan service and wish fulfillment in this: Sherlock and Moriarty get together to solve a mystery and for a little more. Making them straight was, possibly, a bid to make them more mainstream, although Mycroft is gay. (He's more the gay helper trope, although I don't know if there's a more particular name for it: he shows up whenever it's handy, steps in, takes care of details and isn't seen much. That is, as much as Mycroft might seem to promote a bit of diversity, it's disappointing how little he's in. I remembered one line about him being gay and was so unsure of if I remembered correctly, I had to go look it up and confirmed on a post by her agent about getting a deal for this book. Which I'm not linking to because I don't know how to link directly to the comments and it's in a comment. My point solidifies itself: there's so little about him, I could barely remember him.) It does, however, work. A lot about Mori (how much of the world she notices from a female perspective, for example) calls for her to be a girl. It makes her seem more vulnerable, and there's the similarity in appearance to her lost mother that drives a good deal of her father's actions towards her. (Nothing sexual, but there are comments about how she couldn't live up to her mother that her brother's don't get. There's a lot in between the lines about how she, as a girl, is treated differently from the boys in her family.)
Regardless of this, or the stereotype of her as the mother hen at home, there's enough to make me want to read the second. The characters feel full, and just different enough from the originals that I bought them in the modern world, in a high school setting, and in this story in particular. It also didn't feel like a retread: this was the old mixed with the new in a way that felt balanced to serve the story.
It was a mystery with a romantic subplot, and had as much to do with Mori's home life as the mystery out of home. Again, it was balanced to perfection. One affected the other, and this helped because the author was, in a way, forced to bring one aspect to the forefront right when it was needed.
There were problems, yes. I would have liked to see more Mycroft, and even more Watson, both of whom were teased here. I'd like to see Mycroft in particular take on more than that aide role, and truly become his own character. I'd like to see Mori break out of the confines of her mother-at-home role. Then again, this novel did so much. I'm not sure Petty, a debut author, could have fit all this in without it going into bloat territory. She made the right decisions as far as not including more John, although I'd have liked to see more attention paid to the tropes and not falling into them, especially as she cheekily winked at the girls-having-boys name in the book. (When Sherlock asks, incredulously, about her being named James, she shoots back that his name doesn't exactly fit conventional norms, either. She's sarcastic, tartly so, and I kinda love Mori for that fact.) Then again, debut author. I can only hope this world gets stronger. I'm looking forward to the second, although I'm hoping it goes on sale as well. (I nabbed this for a couple bucks on a Kindle deal.)
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