Mycroft and Sherlock

I read the first of these and had mixed feelings about it, but because I really liked the main characters, Mycroft and Cyrus, I decided to give the second one a try. I'm glad I did, because I enjoyed this book much more than the first. I would rate my enjoyment level at 5/5, but I do see some flaws in the plot's structure, so it's 4/5.

Sherlock joins Mycroft and Cyrus as a major character. He's only 18, and quite an angsty teenager, but I found him mostly endearing and very in-character for canon Sherlock. I liked this interpretation of him at a different age. He's vulnerable and makes mistakes, and he's not really any smarter than Mycroft; he's just amoral and reckless, which gives him more opportunities for heroism. But it feels like the narrative is aware of this fact, and this is really Mycroft's story.

Mycroft here is a guy trying to do his best in life, for his country and for his difficult younger brother, while struggling with some serious personal problems. In a sense, the book is the story of Mycroft giving up on finding happiness for himself, so it has a melancholy feel. There's one prominent female character and Mycroft develops a crush on her. She's a pretty interesting side character, and I was glad she didn't have a larger role, since I strongly disliked the romance plot in the first book.

My problem with the book (big spoiler): I felt the plot with the patriarch's past needed more development. It turned out to be extremely important but I didn't feel it was built up enough. The dead child was the main mystery at first, not the ritualized murders, but the kid felt like an afterthought in the end. I don't think the revenge plot was given enough attention for me to really care about it.

Minor problem (small spoiler): I was hoping the secret about the twins would be much more interesting than it turned out to be.

I love both Cyrus and Mycroft, as well as their friendship, and I also love the fact that Sherlock didn't take over this book. I'm not a big fan of fight scenes, but these were all very good and not too long or frequent. In fact, this book is written like popular crime thrillers, in that it has short chapters and lots of PoV changes, although it's a fairly long book. There is still a lot of flavor of 1870s London, which is what draws me to historical mysteries.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Damian Lynch, and he was fantastic.