The Hollow of Fear

August 27, 2018
Sherlockians who also love romance novels will best appreciate Thomas’s third Lady Sherlock mystery set in Victorian England (after 2017’s A Conspiracy in Belgravia). Charlotte Holmes works as the world’s only consulting detective under the name Sherlock Holmes, resorting to the contrivance of interviewing clients in her Baker Street sitting room on behalf of her brother, who’s confined to his bedroom with an illness. The prologue, which features Charlotte’s half-brother, Myron Finch, who has been posing as her family’s groom and is a former minion of Moriarty, “a man of dangerous aims,” builds to a dramatic encounter between Charlotte and Moriarty. The main narrative flashes forward several months to the case of Lord Ingram Ashburton. Ingram, who’s smitten with Charlotte, becomes the prime suspect in the murder of his estranged wife, Lady Ingram, who became a fugitive after Charlotte exposed Lady Ingram’s role in the death of three agents of the Crown. Those who find Thomas’s creative reimagining plausible and don’t mind anachronistic language will have fun. Agent: Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary.

Kate Reading's narration makes the third installment of the Lady Sherlock series blissful to listen to. The story is quite interesting by itself, and Reading's masterful skills add even greater value to it. She delivers outstanding character interpretations including different voices for all the characters, creating the illusion of listening to real people. The story picks up just where the previous book ended, and there are several events and characters who refer to the previous book. Charlotte, Lady Sherlock, will have to use her powers of deduction once more in a complicated case in which much is at stake and nothing is what it seems. This is Sherlock Holmes at its best--with a feminist twist. E.D. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine