Audiobook Review: Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas

Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
Author: Sherry Thomas
Narrator: Kate Reading
Series: Lady Sherlock (Book 6)
Publication: Penguin Audio (November 2, 2021)
Length: 13 hours

Description: Charlotte Holmes comes face-to-face with her enemy when Moriarty turns to her in his hour of need, in the USA Today best-selling series set in Victorian England.

A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes' doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth.

Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty's daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s sister, Livia, tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau, Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte’s longtime friend and ally, Lord Ingram, at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte - or is it the other way around?

But the more secrets Charlotte unravels about Miss Moriarty’s disappearance, the more she wonders why Moriarty has entrusted this delicate matter to her of all people. Is it merely to test Charlotte's skills as an investigator, or has the man of shadows trapped her in a nest of vipers?

My Thoughts: The sixth Lady Sherlock mystery is filled with twists and turns. Since their previous adventure, Charlotte and Mrs. Watson have been poised to flee the attentions of Moriarty. They are surprised and more than a little suspicious when Moriarty comes to hire them to check on the welfare of his daughter.

Moriarty's daughter has long since fled her father and taken refuge in an occult community. However, none of Moriarty's watchers have been able to confirm that she is still there. Unable to refuse the assignment from Moriarty, Charlotte and Mrs. Watson leave town to visit the community where they discover all sorts of secrets and mysteries. 

Meanwhile in town, Olivia finds herself with a mystery of her own when she sees her beloved Mr. Marbleton and intercepts a clue from him which may lead to his escape from Moriarty. As she unravels mysterious hints, Lord Ingram assists her and begins his own affair with Charlotte while waiting for his divorce to make it way through the House of Lords.

This was a nicely twisty tale. I enjoyed Charlotte's new relationship with Lord Ingram. I also liked the clue they found using microphotography. I liked the way it reintroduced characters from earlier books in the series. 

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

A Conspiracy in Belgravia
Author: Sherry Thomas
Narrator: Kate Reading
Series: Lady Sherlock (Book 2)
Publication: Blackstone Audio (September 5, 2017)
Length: 10 hours and 28 minutes

Description: The game is afoot as Charlotte Holmes returns in USA Today best-selling author Sherry Thomas' Victorian-set Lady Sherlock series.

Being shunned by society gives Charlotte Holmes the time and freedom to put her extraordinary powers of deduction to good use. As "Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective", aided by the capable Mrs. Watson, she has had great success helping with all manner of inquiries, but she is not prepared for the new client who arrives at her Upper Baker Street office.

Lady Ingram, wife of Charlotte's dear friend and benefactor, wants Sherlock Holmes to find her first love, who failed to show up at their annual rendezvous. Matters of loyalty and discretion aside, the case becomes even more personal for Charlotte as the missing man is none other than Myron Finch, her illegitimate half-brother.

In the meanwhile, Charlotte wrestles with a surprising proposal of marriage, a mysterious stranger woos her sister Livia, and an unidentified body surfaces where least expected. Charlotte's investigative prowess is challenged as never before: Can she find her brother in time - or will he, too, end up as a nameless corpse somewhere in the belly of London?

My Thoughts: This second Charlotte Holmes novel continues on from the first with Charlotte making her home with Mrs. Watson and continuing to solve problems as the assistant for the reclusive "Sherlock Holmes" whose existence is fabricated. Her next case seems simple enough: find a missing man. But it quickly becomes quite complex.

Lady Ingram, the estranged wife of Charlotte's good friend and mentor, comes to her to find a man that she loved before she married. She tells a story of how they meet once a year in a public place and then go on with their lives. He missed this year's meeting and she is convinced that something bad happened to him. The story becomes more complex when Charlotte learns that Lady Ingram's lost love is her illegitimate brother Myron Finch.

Charlotte begins her investigation which quickly raises more questions than it answers and involves her with old enemies. Meanwhile, Lord Ingram is still living with a wife he no longer loves or respects but can't divorce for a number of reasons. And Lord Bancroft has renewed his proposal to Charlotte and is offering her codes and ciphers as incentives to accept his proposal.

Meanwhile Inspector Treadles is trying to solve the murder of a man found in a seldom used house and grateful that it is a straight-forward case that needn't involve Sherlock Holmes. Treadles is also dealing with a wife of his own who isn't quite fitting into the box he has built for her in his mind.

On the domestic front, Charlotte's sister Livia is attempting to write a novel about Sherlock Holmes which is starting to sound a lot like Arthur Conan Doyle's version. Livia has also met a man in the park who shares her love of literature but who is completely unsuitable to know because they haven't been introduced.

This was an engaging story that managed to braid all of these varied plot threads into an engaging and twisty mystery set in Victorian times. Kate Reading did an excellent job with the different voices and the pacing of the story.

This was an Audible Plus title for me. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

A Study in Scarlet Women
Author: Sherry Thomas
Narrator: Kate Reading
Series: The Lady Sherlock Series (Book 1)
Publication: Blackstone Audio (October 18, 2016)
Length: 11 hours

Description: With her inquisitive mind, Charlotte Holmes has never felt comfortable with the demureness expected of the fairer sex in upper-class society. But even she never thought that she would become a social pariah, an outcast fending for herself on the mean streets of London.

When the city is struck by a trio of unexpected deaths and suspicion falls on her sister and her father, Charlotte is desperate to find the true culprits and clear the family name. She'll have help from friends new and old, but in the end, it will be up to Charlotte, under the assumed name Sherlock Holmes, to challenge society's expectations and match wits against an unseen mastermind.

My Thoughts: A STUDY IN SCARLET WOMEN is a vastly re-imagined version of Sherlock Holmes. In this case, Sherlock is actually Charlotte Holmes, the youngest daughter of a gentleman and his wife. She is something of a favorite of her father in that he is amused by her eccentricities  but not enough of a favorite that he feels obligated to keep his word to her. Having expressed her desire to never marry, he agreed to send her to school and finance her quest to become a school mistress when she turned 25. However, when that date came, he reneged and left Charlotte to do something outrageous to take herself off the marriage market. She is caught in flagrante delicto with a married man which ruins her reputation and would have caused her parents to send her away to their country home if she hadn't decided to run away first.

Previously, to relieve some of her boredom and to exercise her talents and high intelligence, Charlotte had worked through a friend to offer the police insights on certain crimes. Her friend is Lord Ingram Ashburton who happens to be the only man she has ever kissed. Unfortunately, he has entered into a society marriage and is the father of two young children. Even though he and his wife are living a sham of a marriage, his morals don't allow for him to take Charlotte as his mistress which she would like. They have developed a strong friendship though. When she runs away to London, he keeps an eye on her and engineers a meeting with a former member of the demimonde, actress and widow Mrs. John Watson. Mrs. Watson takes Charlotte in as a companion and encourages her to set herself up as a consulting detective. 

There are three interconnected crimes that she is working on. The first is the suspicious death of a man who lived a reclusive life but who was connected to society, the second is of another young woman who was also a member of society, and the third was the death of the mother of the young married man who compromised Charlotte. The cases are nicely tricky and provide quite a challenge for Charlotte. 

There are many parallels to the original Sherlock Holmes stories with Charlotte as Sherlock, Mrs. Watson playing Dr. Watson as a companion and sounding board. There is even a Mycroft Holmes equivalent in Lord Ingram's older brother Lord Bancroft. The police contact is Inspector Robert Treadles of the Metropolitan Police. What I found particularly interesting was the way the author managed to infuse each of the characters with beliefs of the day and make them each - with the exception of the shadowy Lord Bancroft - well-rounded and fully developed people. This story is firmly set in Victorian England and the characters really act as Victorians.

This was a page turner of a mystery for me. I wanted to know who committed the crimes and why. I also wanted to know that Charlotte would finally find a place for herself that let her use her talents to the fullest. I hope that Charlotte has many further adventures.

The narrator did an excellent job distinguishing all of the many characters. 

I got this one from Audible Plus. You can buy your copy here.

Friday Memes: Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

We all carry pieces of our past with us. Sometimes they're shiny and worthy as new half crowns in our pockets. Sometimes they're bits of lint or scraps of paper shredded beyond use. Plenty of my memories carry a stab of regret or a burn of shame with them, and honestly, there are times when I wonder how we all bloody well live with the fool things we've done.

Friday 56:

"I know that feeling myself," I said truthfully. "Could you tell me what happened that night? I came from Wapping straightaway, but I didn't arrive until well after the boat sank."

"How could you? It all happened in minutes."

This week I am spotlighting Under a Veiled Moon by Karen Odden. This book from my review stack is the second in the Inspector Corravan historical mystery series. Here is the description from Amazon:

In the tradition of C. S. Harris and Anne Perry, a fatal disaster on the Thames and a roiling political conflict set the stage for Karen Odden’s second Inspector Corravan historical mystery.

September 1878. One night, as the pleasure boat the Princess Alice makes her daily trip up the Thames, she collides with the Bywell Castle, a huge iron-hulled collier. The Princess Alice shears apart, throwing all 600 passengers into the river; only 130 survive. It is the worst maritime disaster London has ever seen, and early clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who believe violence is the path to restoring Irish Home Rule.

For Scotland Yard Inspector Michael Corravan, born in Ireland and adopted by the Irish Doyle family, the case presents a challenge. Accused by the Home Office of willfully disregarding the obvious conclusion, and berated by his Irish friends for bowing to prejudice, Corravan doggedly pursues the truth, knowing that if the Princess Alice disaster is pinned on the IRB, hopes for Home Rule could be dashed forever.

Corrovan’s dilemma is compounded by Colin, the youngest Doyle, who has joined James McCabe’s Irish gang. As violence in Whitechapel rises, Corravan strikes a deal with McCabe to get Colin out of harm’s way. But unbeknownst to Corravan, Colin bears longstanding resentments against his adopted brother and scorns his help.

As the newspapers link the IRB to further accidents, London threatens to devolve into terror and chaos. With the help of his young colleague, the loyal Mr. Stiles, and his friend Belinda Gale, Corravan uncovers the harrowing truth—one that will shake his faith in his countrymen, the law, and himself.