advance review copy – Page 34 – What Cathy Read Next…

I’m delighted to be taking part in the publication day blog blitz for Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair by M. K. Wiseman. My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me to take part and to the author for my digital review copy. Do check out the posts by the other book bloggers taking part in today’s blitz.

About the Book

Before Baker Street, there was Montague.

Before partnership with a former army doctor recently returned from Afghanistan, Sherlock Holmes had but the quiet company of his own great intellect. Solitary he might be but, living as he did for the thrill of the chase, it was enough.

For a little while, at the least, it was enough.

That is, until a client arrives at his door with a desperate plea and an invitation into a world of societal scandal and stage door dandies. Thrust deep in an all-consuming role and charged with the safe-keeping of another, Holmes must own to his limits or risk danger to others besides himself in this the case of the aluminium crutch.

Format: Hardcover (192 pages ) Publisher:
Publication date: 7th December 2021 Genre: Historical Fiction, Historical Crime, Mystery

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

Effectively a prequel (and a homage) to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories, the Sherlock Holmes of the author’s imagining has all the observational and deductive skills we have come to expect. This is demonstrated when he identifies a character as a violin player purely from a mark on his right index finger. Okay, he’s a bit of a show-off. However he also has a cabbie’s in-depth knowledge of London and demonstrates a remarkable facility for disguise.

Fans of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories will have fun spotting the occasional allusions to the original series, including to those ‘untold stories’ often mentioned in passing at the beginning of cases. The aluminium crutch that features in this book is a case in point. Clearly the author has an encyclopeadic of the Sherlock Holmes stories as there are references to both well-known characters from the original, such as Inspector Lestrade, and to less well-known ones, such as Langdale Pike. I’m sure there were other allusions I missed but my favourite was the name of the alter ego Sherlock Holmes adopts in order to pursue his investigation – Ormond Secker. I’ll pause while you go and search online for that… Are you back? Clever, isn’t it?

Even if you’re not familiar with the original stories, Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair is an entertaining historical crime mystery which has moments of melodrama and moments when you might be justified in wondering just how on earth Holmes is going to make sense of everything. Since most of us lack the impressive deductive abilities of Sherlock Holmes, I suggest you just sit back and enjoy the ride.

In three words: Lively, engaging, ingenious

Try something similar: The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis

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About the Author

M. K. Wiseman has degrees in Interarts & Technology and Library & Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her office, therefore, is a curious mix of storyboards and reference materials. Both help immensely in the writing of historical novels. She currently resides in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

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About the Book

December, 1939. Having solved the case of the Suffolk Vampire, Inspector Betty Church and her colleagues at Sackwater Police Station have settled back down to business. There’s the elderly Mr Fern who keeps losing his slippers, Sylvia Satin’s thirteenth birthday party to attend and the scintillating case of the missing bookmark to solve. Though peace and quiet are all well and good, Betty soon finds herself longing for some cold-blooded murder.

When a bomb is dropped on a residential street, both peace and quiet are broken and it seems the war has finally reached Sackwater. But Betty cannot stop the Hun, however hard she tries. So when the body of one of the bomb victims is found stretched out like an angel on Sackwater’s beach, Betty concentrates on finding the enemy much closer to home…

Format: Hardcover (432 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 11th July 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Crime, Mystery

Find The Room of the Dead (Betty Church Mystery #2) on Goodreads

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The Room of the Dead is the second in the author’s Betty Church Mystery series. True to form, I’m reading the series out of order, having read the first and third books – Betty Church And The Suffolk Vampire and The Ghost Tree – before this one. However, at least I can reassure readers new to the series that The Room of the Dead works perfectly well as a standalone. There are brief references to events in the first book, but nothing that would spoil your enjoyment of this one.

The book sees the return of the mostly hapless collection of individuals who constitute the Sackwater police force: Constable ‘Dodo’ Chivers (as barmy as her name suggests), Constable Box, Constable Bank-Anthony (‘Bantony’), Constable Rivers, identical twins Constables Lysander and Algernon Grinder-Snipes, Sergeant Briggs (‘Brigsy’) and the perpetual thorn in Betty’s side, Inspector Sharkey (referred to as ‘Old Scrapie’, although not within his hearing).

You’ll have deduced by now that the author has a penchant for giving his characters unusual names such as Simnal Cranditch and Garrison Orchard. And if you’ve read any of the author’s other books you’ll be prepared for the frequent puns, wordplay and quirky chapter titles. As a John Buchan fan, my favourite was ‘The Twenty-Nine Steps’, although where the other ten went I’ve no idea!

When it comes to solving cases, once again Betty demonstrates she has more brains in her little finger than all of her officers put together. And she’s going to need all that brain power as the investigation gets increasingly complex. Fans of the author’s Gower Street Detective series, will be pleased to see March Middleton, Betty’s godmother, turn up to lend a hand and demonstrate the miraculous powers of observation and deduction she learned from the Gower Street detective himself, Sidney Grice. I love Betty as a character and was delighted at – hold the front page – a hint of romance in the air… or among the sand dunes to be more precise.

The Room of the Dead is engagingly silly at times and some readers may tire of the frequent fun poked at the Suffolk accent, but it’s entertaining nonetheless and the solution to the mystery turns out to be slightly darker than you may have expected.

I received a review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Engaging, humorous, ingenious

Try something similar: The Custard Corpses by M. J. Porter

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About the Author

M.R.C. Kasasian was raised in Lancashire. He has had careers as varied as a factory hand, wine waiter, veterinary assistant, fairground worker and dentist. He is the author of the much loved Gower Street Detective series, five books featuring personal detective Sidney Grice and his ward March Middleton, as well as two other Betty Church mysteries, Betty Church and the Suffolk Vampire and The Room of the Dead. He lives with his wife, in Suffolk in the summer and in Malta in the winter.(Photo/bio: Publisher author page)

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