fakepumpkins's reviews
16 reviews

These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes by Leonard Goldberg

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

If you have a passing awareness of the Sherlock Holmes canon, you'll recognize names, find the references and characters included somewhat enjoyable, and it's a fine story as is and a fairly well written book. If you have any more intimate knowledge of the SH canon, this book is a slog. Every "important" character from the past now has a child in nearly the exact same role as their parent. It's kind of an infuriatingly reference heavy story by that margin.

The story is The Sign of Four and the Empty House mixed together, with some references to other stories like the Greek Interpreter. The culprit of the crime is basically known from the start and the story more or less becomes about gaining a body of evidence to incriminate the culprit as opposed to gathering clues to figure out who did it and why. It's not a particularly moving mystery by that standard, most of the enjoyment from the story comes from watching Watson Jr and Sr trail behind Johanna as she does her detective thing.
Also a personal kind of poor taste note, in order to pull off the sense that Johanna inherited Holmes' deductive skills, they also had to make the argument that Moran Jr inherited his father's criminal inclinations. This is a trope that even in the lightest sense can affect children of people that have committed crimes, insinuating that criminal behavior can be passed from parent to child is frankly a disgusting thing to entertain. Plenty of other stories have handled this better, but unfortunately that isn't this story. Moran is a criminal because apparently all Morans are criminals.

Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder by T.A. Willberg

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The story doesn't pick up until about halfway through the book, in which the actual "midnight murder" starts getting investigated. It's hard to feel like this is a mystery story, rather than something more like a magical realism detective story.

The motives of the antagonist aren't really well extrapolated until their literal confession at the end, and the method by which the crime and murder itself was executed and for what reason hinges on alchemy, not something more grounded in reality. It was also a little frustrating that the efforts to make it a mystery were obfuscated by plot points that kept things like the actual details of the crime and suspect list from coming out until that halfway point in the book.

As a book and story, it's fine and alright, there's the illusion of a larger cast, but only 3-4 actually are important so a lot of pieces fall away once the focus on the inciting incident murder actually starts.

Five Little Pigs: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R.A. Salvatore

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon: A Minnesota Mystery by Larry Millett

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Sexual assault