This review contains SPOILERS for the series, not just for this book, so beware! Jump to the movie-style rating if you want to avoid spoilage.
Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes already on their way to France when Holmes's son, Damian Adler, alerts them to the fact his home has been broken into. Fearing that some of their enemies may try to hurt them through Damian, his young daughter, and his new fiancée, they rush to the rescue. While Holmes ensures that Damian and company are hidden away safely, Russell investigates the break-in and ends up delving into long-buried family secrets.
Like Locked Rooms, this is one of the more deeply personal books in the series. This time, it is Holmes who confronts past trauma and woe, as he grapples with remember his mother's suicide when he was a boy. But this book has a very happy ending indeed -- much happier than I expected for a long time! I found it very satisfying.
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for oblique references to the impropriety of a man and his fiancée sharing a house, then a hotel room, and for the unsettlingly modern reaction of most characters to this behavior.
It's been a long time since I read a Mary Russell-Holmes book, and I have missed a lot of the series. My last one was probably no. 8 or 9. Well, one of these days I need to get back at them.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked this one.
Fanda, I have liked the last 3 of them really, really well. For a while there, I was just liking every-other-book, but 16, 17, and 18 have all been hits, for me! You have some fun stuff ahead when you get back into the series!
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