tapestryofwords 's review for:

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca

4.0

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Overall, I found this quite a compelling read. The mystery of Ruth Cruger's disappearance is the most gripping part of the story, and what happens to Grace Humiston following that case was less interesting to me. I enjoyed learning more about the society of New York at that time; the concern about "white slavery," for example, and the various groups that either assisted or stymied Grace's investigation. I think the author does a good job of demonstrating Grace's persistence in the face of adversity -- her determination to never give up shines through. I do wish we had been able to get a little glimpse of what was going on in her mind, to better understand her as a person, but the author was of course limited by the sources he could find on Grace and her various cases (he discusses sources briefly at the end). The weakest aspect of the book is the writing style itself -- information was sometimes shared out of order, or the narrative hopped around in time, which was confusing to try to follow; also, the author seemed to have a penchant for writing sentence fragments for dramatic effect, which did not achieve the desired 'punch' for me. There were also a lot of different people involved in the story, so it was hard to keep them all straight in my mind (not the author's fault, though).

I'd never heard previously of "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" and I greatly enjoyed getting to know about her story, the Ruth Cruger case, and the various influences in New York in the early 1900s.