Mycroft Holmes

I enjoyed this. Mycroft Holmes and Cyrus Douglas are both great characters, and there's a lot of banter and affection between them. They definitely have a similar dynamic to Sherlock & Watson. The various mysteries in the story were all pretty lurid, too, in the same vein as the original Sherlock Holmes stories and their adaptations. The novel takes place mostly on Trinidad, and deals a lot with race. In addition to Douglas, there are some interesting PoC side characters, too.

But there was a major plot point that disturbed me. Mycroft's fiancee Georgiana turns out to be a villain. That's fine, I don't object to female villains at all. But I didn't like that her behavior was framed as an example of the fickleness of women, and she was the only prominent female character in the book. She wasn't fickle; she had a plan all along, but Mycroft doesn't react to her betrayal as though she is actually capable of evil.

So, I'm not sure if I'm glad to have read this or not. But it's always strange for me to dip into mainstream books and get confronted with things like that; I'm very happy mostly reading books that are totally to my taste. Anyway, other readers probably wouldn't have the same objection I did. I'm not going to give it a star rating because I feel conflicted.

A decent Holmes pastiche, with the focus on Mycroft, Sherlock's smarter older brother. Mycroft is 23, out of University, working for the Secretary of War, and engaged to a young woman who was raised in Trinidad and educated in England. When rumors of young children being killed by supernatural forces back in Trinidad reach England, Georgiana, the fiancee, embarks on a trip home, and Mycroft follows her (although she tells him not to).

What follows is an adventure story and a mystery, with murderous thugs, poisonings, corrupt government officials, communities of formerly enslaved and indentured people banding together to help each other, middle of the night break-ins, sword and gun fights, and surprise attacks by sea. Here and there we see catch glimpses of Mycroft using his formidable powers of observation to inform his decisions at life-or-death moments. The story of his fiancee helps us understand why he became the confirmed bachelor we know from the Sherlock Holmes stories. However, this Mycroft is a man of action, and it is unclear what made him become the sedentary Mycroft of Sherlock Holmes fame. I guess I will have to read the next Kareem Abdul-Jabbar book to find out, and I am looking forward to doing so.