The Murder Pit

November 1, 2018
William Arrowood, the poor man's Sherlock Holmes, goes looking for a silent bride and finds a cesspool of corruption.It's been six months since "weak-minded" Birdie Barclay married pig farmer Walter Ockwell, and in all that time her parents, insurance clerk Dunbar and singing teacher Martha Barclay, haven't had one word from her. They just want to know she's all right, they tearfully assure Arrowood and his sidekick and amanuensis, Norman Barnett. Huffing at the much richer pot Holmes got for solving "The Adventure of the Priory School," Arrowood relieves the Barclays of a trifling sum and sets off for the Ockwell farm, where he intimates that he's brought news of a legacy to Birdie but is still prevented from seeing her by Walter Ockwell and his sister, Rosanna, who insist that Birdie isn't home even though Arrowood can see her signaling him from an upstairs window as he leaves. When a more direct attempt to unite Birdie with her parents fails, Arrowood hunkers down to investigate possible skulduggery at the farm, which seems to employ no one but the kinds of mentally challenged patients the Caterham Asylum deals with. For his pains he's warned off by Sgt. Root, of the Catford and Lewisham Police, and Barnett is soundly beaten. Edna Gillie, a woman who hints at stories of three dead children, disappears herself soon after Arrowood's one conversation with her, and he fears that she's dead, and that she's not the only one. What has Birdie gotten herself into, and can a man who sets himself apart from Holmes by calling himself "an emotional detective. I try and solve my cases by understanding people" extricate her from the danger?Better detective work than the series kickoff (Arrowood, 2017) and less emphasis on the hero's amusingly futile rivalry with Holmes even though his case ends up echoing "The Priory School" in more uncomfortable ways than he could have imagined.

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December 1, 2018
There's a line forming to knock the stuffing out of Sherlock Holmes, and here's the latest contender: a fat, flatulent, boozy Victorian private investigative agent named William Arrowood. We met him in Finlay's 2017 Arrowood, and he's still at it. Holmes works by physical clues and his famous logic, he huffs, but sometimes there aren't any clues and people are not logical. Arrowood solves his cases by understanding people. He won't let up, detailing Holmes' faulty reasoning in The Adventure of the Priory School and his deceit in A Case of Identity. Jealous? Yes. Holmes works in a moneyed world, and Arrowood?and his Watson, a feistier version named Barnett?labor in the miasma of South London. As their current case, an attempt to reunite an aging couple with their daughter, turns murderous, we follow them through a world reeking of open sewers, phlegm, running sores, feces, rotting teeth, and man stink. Readers may find all this realism a bit distracting, but if they can stay focused on the exchanges between Arrowood and Barnett?witty, sometimes brutal, and, then, surprisingly moving?they'll be fine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)