A Study in Honor

April 9, 2018
This riveting mystery (fantasist Beth Bernobich’s first work under the O’Dell pseudonym), set in near-future Washington D.C., spotlights delightfully fresh adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous characters. After Dr. Janet Watson loses her arm in an attack by the New Confederacy, she is discharged from the Army and returns home. She meets the fascinating, if infuriating, Sara Holmes, and they become roommates in Georgetown, Va., where, as two black women, they are not entirely welcome. Watson observes troubling patterns in her new job at the VA, and these, along with prompts from Holmes’s top secret connections, send the women on a high-stakes search for answers. As the mystery unfolds, it departs from direct Doyle parallels and takes on an entertaining life of its own. Attention to detail about futuristic elements, such as Watson’s mixed feelings about her temperamental mechanical arm, helps construct a believable setting. Readers who pick this up for the novelty of Watson and Holmes as black women will be impressed by how well O’Dell realizes them as full, rich characters. This is a real treat for fans of Conan Doyle and SF mysteries.

Despite narrator Lisa Renee Pitts's warm, listenable voice, her inconsistent pacing occasionally obscures this new take on Holmes and Watson by fantasy writer Claire O'Dell. The detective pair are now lesbian women of color in a near-future America engulfed in civil war. Watson, a surgeon, lost an arm in service and is coping with PTSD. Holmes is on the trail of greedy executives doing nasty stuff to soldiers. Pitts gives an interesting, audibly wounded voice to Watson, a bit of edge to Holmes, and well-rounded characterizations of a few other key players. It's the narrative that sounds choppy, almost as if the punctuation was confusing. It's something to improve for next time, as this may be the start of an intriguing new series. A.C.S. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

June 15, 2018

During the New Civil War, Dr. Janet Watson served on the battlefield treating wounded soldiers until a bullet destroyed her arm and ended her surgical career. Having lost her parents, her girlfriend, and now her profession, she heads to Washington, DC, where she meets Sara Holmes, who is also black and a member of the LGBTQA community, but as enigmatic and mercurial as Watson is angry and dogmatic. Holmes offers Watson a home and more questions than answers. Yet when Watson discovers that veterans from the war have begun dying mysteriously, she risks her tenuous position to discover the truth with the help of Holmes's own position as a covert agent. References to politics, race, and veterans' issues enhance a vivid, near-future universe. VERDICT In this intriguing and fresh twist on the Sherlock Holmes mythos, O'Dell (pseudonym for author Beth Bernobich) brings a heady mix of dystopian sf and strong female protagonists in the first of a new series.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2018
It's genderbent and racebent, and undeniably Holmesian. Watson?Janet Watson?is, like her Doyle-ian predecessor, recently returned from war. This is the near-future New Civil War, raging in the Midwest. Discharged from her Illinois unit after her arm is shattered by a rebel bullet, Watson returns to D.C. to recover. While she fights the V.A. for a new prosthetic to replace her glitchy, ill-fitting military one, she gets a job as a medical technician. It's not quite enough to live comfortably on, and a friend suggests Holmes, who needs a roommate. Sara Holmes is abrupt, imperious, awkward, brilliant, and often has strange houseguests, but the apartment is too good to pass up. When Watson, not willing to let a patient's death go uninvestigated, finds herself in over her head, Holmes steps in to help. Soldiers dying isn't inherently unusual, but this series of deaths is the tip of an iceberg of political intrigue. There's plenty of action and a burgeoning relationship between the two women to keep the reader invested.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)