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.
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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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My thoughts: I enjoyed the previous one of these (here) and was pleased to be reading another of M.K Wiseman’s Sherlock stories, this one set before Dr Watson entered Holmes’ life.
This was quite a complicated case involving false identities, gangsters, land deeds in America, a jilted lover, and a rich uncle keeping secrets. Hired to solve a missing person case, that is slightly more complex due to another person impersonating the missing man, Holmes soon finds himself drawn into the complex lies of Price family. Trying to figure out the whereabouts of the real Tobias-Henry Price, he comes across a safe cracker who is happily in custody and Price’s uncle insists the foppish dandy using his nephew’s name is the real Tobias, but his fianceè insists her Toby is someone else entirely.
Eventually Holmes resorts to disguise and goes undercover in society, where he feels intensely uncomfortable, as well as keeping track of a gang of criminals he thinks are involved. And why is everyone so interested in Price’s aluminium cane?
Obviously Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes and he solves the case, probably a lot sooner that he says he has, through deduction and his acute understanding of how humans think.
A fiendishly clever case and at times very confusing but all is revealed in the end.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 