21 books this month.  One DNF.  Lots of 4 star reads but nothing in the 4.5 or 5 star range this month.  Very little non-fiction either, as I'm mostly focusing on BookLikes-opoly.

Of my 4 star reads the one that stand out in my mind were Eleventh Grave in Moonlight  and Mycroft Holmes.

This month I've read 6,262 pages for a total of 31,705 year to date.

A pretty good month overall, just not as terrific as they've been so far this year.  Still I'll take this as a 'bad' month any day!

The title of this book was the first thing to catch my eye; the second was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's name on the cover as one of the authors.  How can I possibly pass this up?

As an avowed fangirl of Sherlock Holmes, I've learned to stay away from almost all pastiches and mysteries featuring my fictional hero, but his brother... Mycroft makes few enough appearances in the canon that I thought perhaps it might work for me.

I thought wrong.  I've realised reading this book that in my mind Mycroft is a distillation of Sherlock; a purer essence of all the things that make Sherlock so formidable.  Put another way, Sherlock is Mycroft with an added touch of humanity (just a touch).  The canonical Mycroft is only ever found in his home, and in his club.  His club, the Diogenes Club, of which he is a founding member, is described thusly in The Greek Interpreter:

There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. [...] It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. 

So a Mycroft that hares off on a rip-roaring adventure on the high seas with his best friend, in pursuit of the love of his life and fiancee, is rather an anti-canonical Mycroft.  Sure, he has the stunning faculties the Holmes family is renowned for, but he's also a romantic and, even if this book takes place when he's quite young, entirely too social and emotional a creature to truly call himself Holmes.

BUT... boy is this a good story.  In spite of all my grumpiness above, I could not put this book down.  I don't know exactly how accurate it is from a historical perspective, but it certainly felt very, very accurate.  The authors didn't shy away from some of the less savoury aspects of the Victorian age, but thankfully didn't beat the reader over the head with it either.  The atmospheric picture of Trinidad, from balmy weather to superstitious panic felt almost like a character itself. 

I don't want to touch too much upon the plot, because the dawning reveal of the plot is, I think, somewhat central to the success of the book.  Suffice it to say that it's a fitting subject for the Victorian time it takes place in, but probably not one that would immediately come to mind when thinking about Victorian fiction.

There are some rather extraordinary action scenes, especially at the end; extraordinary in the sense that they are wholly unrealistic and require the reader to suspend disbelief, but I suppose from a statistical point of view, it is almost impossible for an adventure mystery written by a man to begin and end without fisticuffs, gunfights and explosions.

If you know nothing about Mycroft Holmes, or can divorce yourself from the canonical Mycroft, definitely check this out if you're in the mood for a fun action adventure.  I truly enjoyed it for that alone, in spite of myself.

Total pages: 336

$$:  $3.00

I am a long-time Holmesian, and I love to see what different authors do with the spin-offs. Some are better than others, of course ... and this is one of the best.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, himself a long-time Holmesian, has made Mycroft Holmes his main character in a story about human trafficking during the late 19th Century. With his friend Cyrus Douglas, a free Black gentleman business owner, he goes to Trinidad to investigate disappearances in Douglas' home town ... and becomes embroiled in intrigue at all manner of levels.

Abdul-Jabbar's authorial voice is entertaining, and it's obvious from this work that he takes the Doyle canon very seriously. He gives us a backstory that explains Mycroft's solitary ways in the Doyle canon, and also lets us in on the earliest days of his career in the service of the Crown.

The book is chock-full of entertaining characters, intriguing situations, and great historical detail.

Highly recommended.

  I loveeee it I don't care if this was a FF, I couldn't stop reading it, I adore this young version of Sherlock, he's sooo sllaskdflsdhfkld, but I think Irene should be more badass right? ohh and Mycroft! I cannot..

 the rating isn't higher because the editing was poor, I feel I was reading an arc (which I wasn't I can assure you) anyway, I hope the editing will be better for the next book. Edit: Eva Morgan wrote on twitter (04-28-14)"Just fixed a couple typos in LOCKED - if you bought it before today and you want the fixed edition, email me and I'll send you a free copy."