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A review by gabibooksit
The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson
3.0
This book is not at all what I expected. Now, I love all things Sherlock Holmes, so the premise of a pair of brothers who work from the famed 221b Baker Street address and respond to letters sent to the Great Detective really sounded like my cup of tea. It was a little surprising and a little disappointing to discover that ninety-five percent of the book doesn't have the brothers working together and doesn't even take place in London. The majority of the story follows older brother Reggie as he tracks younger brother Nigel who is in turn tracking a young woman who wrote to Sherlock Holmes some twenty years before.
Reggie is our reluctant detective, starting his journey not in the interest of the letter writer but in the interest of corralling his young brother and setting his life to rights. The first part of the novel I felt dragged and was a little flat...Reggie follows the path before him and rides around in a lot of taxis. The prose seems sparse, and not in a Robert B. Parker sense of sparse, but I felt Robertson shortchanged the potential in his setting and his supporting characters.
Things start to pick up significantly mid-way through the book when Reggie is no longer on his own and the supporting characters become more important. Reggie does start coming into his own as he pulls the threads together and makes some sacrifices to see it through to the conclusion.
Reggie grew on me through the course of the story. At first he seems very flat for a lead, but one of the things I like about him is that he proves to be a man of action as far as the investigation is concerned. Robertson applies a very deft hand at Reggie's character development and his deductive skills as they grow, although he retains several flaws.
I will definitely be reading the next in the series, hoping for the brothers to be working together, fewer taxi rides, and some fleshed out characterizations.
Reggie is our reluctant detective, starting his journey not in the interest of the letter writer but in the interest of corralling his young brother and setting his life to rights. The first part of the novel I felt dragged and was a little flat...Reggie follows the path before him and rides around in a lot of taxis. The prose seems sparse, and not in a Robert B. Parker sense of sparse, but I felt Robertson shortchanged the potential in his setting and his supporting characters.
Things start to pick up significantly mid-way through the book when Reggie is no longer on his own and the supporting characters become more important. Reggie does start coming into his own as he pulls the threads together and makes some sacrifices to see it through to the conclusion.
Reggie grew on me through the course of the story. At first he seems very flat for a lead, but one of the things I like about him is that he proves to be a man of action as far as the investigation is concerned. Robertson applies a very deft hand at Reggie's character development and his deductive skills as they grow, although he retains several flaws.
I will definitely be reading the next in the series, hoping for the brothers to be working together, fewer taxi rides, and some fleshed out characterizations.