Holmes and Watson face treachery and danger in the latest full-length thriller by Bonnie MacBird, author of the bestselling Sherlock Holmes novel Art in the Blood.
Murder, jealousy, and deceit underscore three interlocking mysteries as Holmes and Watson take on a high profile case at Windsor Castle, a boy drowned in the Serpentine, and a crusading women’s rights activist who suspects a traitor in her organization. The cases send them into danger into locales as varied as the Palace itself, a dockland cannery, an arts and crafts atelier, and a Gypsy encampment. But is there peril underfoot as well – right at 221B Baker Street?
The twisting, breathlessly plotted conjoined mysteries that Bonnie MacBird is known for provide a thrill ride that will delight Sherlockians worldwide.
Born in San Francisco, educated at Stanford, Bonnie MacBird lives in London with her husband, computer scientist Alan Kay. A fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle since age ten, she’s active in the Sherlockian community in both the UK and the US, and lectures regularly on Sherlock Holmes, writing, and creativity. A longtime veteran of Hollywood, MacBird has been a screenwriter (original script for TRON), an Emmy winning producer, a playwright, studio exec (Universal) and actor.
MacBird attributes her enjoyment in capturing “voice” to both her acting and screenwriting experience and her music training as well. She teaches a popular screenwriting class at UCLA Extension, which approaches writing for film using techniques of other art forms.
In her Sherlock Holmes novels, she aims to accurately portray the brilliant detective and his friend as closely as possible to Doyle, yet expanding the original short-form fiction to full-length novels. ART IN THE BLOOD features a child who has disappeared, and a bloody art theft and touches on the theme of the perils and blessings of the artistic temperament. UNQUIET SPIRITS features a murdered girl, a threatened scientist, and a haunted whisky estate while reflecting on the dangers of not dealing with the ghosts of one’s past. THE DEVIL’S DUE brings Holmes to the edge of evil in order to combat a devilish serial killer. And THE THREE LOCKS involves magic, cutting-edge science at the Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge, and a mysterious box which arrives at 221B and which defies all efforts to open it. WHAT CHILD IS THIS? provides a Christmas conundrum in which danger stalks two boys, both sought by their fathers, and the mysteries surrounding their identities.
My thoughts: I do enjoy additions to the Conan Doyle canon, especially when they’re well written and give us a similar voice for Dr Watson, as this does. It feels faithful to the original and to the many, many lives Holmes has lived since.
There’s several interwoven cases in this book, and quite a few snakes, including of the human kind. The title of course references Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and there is betrayal and treachery here too.
The tattoo laid across the face of a beautiful young woman, cruelly murdered, and dumped at Windsor Castle, where she was the companion of a cantankerous old Duchess, sees the crime solving duo invited expressly by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, to investigate, putting the police on the back foot.
Meanwhile an acquaintance of theirs brings them the news of the sorry death of one of the Baker Street Irregulars. He too has been killed. Do these deaths connect to one another?
Holmes picks up straight away on tensions within the young woman’s family, she’s practically estranged from her younger siblings, and their mother’s death twelve years before has a bearing on the cases he believes.
There are other deaths and kidnappings before Holmes holds all the pieces of this fiendish mystery together, with Watson at his side as they encounter Roma (referred to as Gypsies in the book in keeping with the period) who hold answers to several key elements to the sorry tale of death, revenge and greed.
Clever, filled with twists and turns that only Sherlock’s singular mind can unravel, this was an enjoyable and compelling read that Conan Doyle himself might have enjoyed (and yes, I know he hated Holmes).
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 