The threat to Charlotte is still very much in existence, but it’s less prominent here and the murder mystery takes centre stage.ĭabney: Um…. It’s a welcome change from the previous book ( Miss Moriarty, I Presume?) which I described (in our review) as “a culmination of all that has gone before”, a drawing together of all the puzzle pieces so far laid out that made, ultimately, for a pretty dense read. As it happens, that self-contained episode is an interesting “closed circle” mystery set aboard ship, combined with some well-observed character interactions and insightful commentary. I did a Pandora’s Box review with Dabney Grinnan over at AAR on this one we had some similar (and some not so similar) views on the book.Ĭaz: This installment in the Lady Sherlock series is very much like one of those mid-season stand-alones in a long-running TV series, when the story arc is mostly suspended in favour of a single, self-contained episode. Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is still abroad and still very much alive. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder also takes place on the ship. Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence, sailing from Southampton for the eastern hemisphere. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking to recover, and she might be able to go back to a normal life. After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding.

The art of theft sherry thomas