Lock & Mori by Heather W. Petty

Heather W. Petty's Lock & Mori is the sixth and final book in my Sherlock Holmes related reading tour. It is a contemporary, young adult novel set in London featuring a teenage version of the consulting detective. There is a Watson but he barely makes an appearance. Instead, the crime solving duo at the center of this story is comprised of a female James "Mori" Moriarty and a male Sherlock Holmes whom Mori nicknames "Lock". Although Lock gets top billing in the title, this is Mori's story.

Lock initiates their partnership by suggesting that he and Mori play a game. He takes her to a crime scene where the two observe from a distance as the police go about their investigation of a dead body and the area surrounding it. Lock challenges Mori to see which of them can solve the murder first. The only rule is that they must share information. At first Mori rejects his proposal with half-hearted protests about how murder shouldn't be a game. But when she spots of a photo of her own mother with the murder victim, Mori cannot help but investigate. And since Lock and Mori are in high school (or whatever the British equivalent of high school is) and are opposite genders, of course there is a romance added into the mix.

I had mixed feelings about this one. On the positive side, I read on Goodreads where the author mentioned that in Doyle's original stories no one but Sherlock ever meets Moriarty. That got her thinking about what if the two knew each other long ago and something happened that turned them into enemies. With that in mind, Lock & Mori could be seen as a prequel telling the story of how Lock and Mori became friends and then enemies. That is an interesting take on the Sherlock Holmes story that I haven't read before.

In the minus column, the identity of the killer is made clear pretty early on, which is rarely a good thing in a murder mystery. Once that mystery solved, the remaining questions to be answered were why and how the murderer would be stopped. That it would be Mori stopping the murderer was never really a question. That brings me to my next issue, is that this really isn't Lock's story. Which could be okay, but if there isn't a Sherlock solving a crime then it isn't a very Sherlock story. And Mori as a lead character was... frustrating. Despite her intellect she makes bad decision after bad decision. I had to constantly remind myself that Mori was only a teenager and that her bad decisions were exactly the kind of idiotic things a teenager might do (but not a teenage Sherlock because that just isn't how Sherlock works).

Mori and Lock were also too much alike. They were both very smart and observant. They were both moody. Neither seemed to have very many friends. They were both all about solving the puzzle. In real life two people who share similar interests and traits may make for an ideal partnership. On paper they make for a rather bland duo. I like that they were both smart but they needed to be smart in different ways. They needed to balance and complement each other rather than merely mirroring each other.

Despite my issues with the book I do want to know what happens next. We already know their relationship can't last. The only question is what will blow it up and how.

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

A Study in Charlotte is a contemporary young adult mystery featuring a teenaged Holmes and Watson. They go by the names Charlotte and James (sometimes Jamie though he doesn't particularly like the nickname). The central conceit of A Study in Charlotte is that Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, and James Moriarty were all real people whose respective descendants, with a few exceptions, don't get along. This is not particularly surprising in the case of the Moriarty family, but even Holmeses and the Watsons keep their distances from one another.

Charlotte and James are direct descendants of Sherlock and John. Charlotte mirrors her ancestor in her brilliance and habits while James has a bit of an anger management problem. Though both were both born to English parents for reasons the two teenagers now attend boarding school in Connecticut, where all the action takes place. That action begins with an obnoxious boy who turns up dead under suspicious circumstances. Given that James punched the obnoxious boy the day before after the boy made some very rude remarks about Charlotte, the two detectives quickly become the primary suspects.

A Study in Charlotte was entertaining but by no means a favorite. Much of the story revolves around various love related issues - unrequited love, first love, angry love. It's cute but not at all what I expected (or wanted) from a Sherlock Holmes story. There were also some serious issues (sexual assault, drug addiction) that were glossed over and could have been handled better.

This is the first in a series. Despite a few reservations I am intrigued enough to see where the story heads next.

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

My Sherlock Homes themed reading series continues with A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas. It is the first in a new series dubbed The Lady Sherlock series. In this first book readers get an origin story as to how Charlotte Holmes, youngest of Lord and Lady Holmes's four daughters, becomes the famous and much sought after detective, Sherlock.

The Holmes daughters are Henrietta, Bernadine, Olivia (who goes by Livia), and Charlotte.  Like Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, Lady Holmes is most concerned about securing beneficial marriages for her daughters. So far she is one for four, Henrietta having successfully found herself a husband. Unfortunately for Lady Holmes her success rate is unlikely to improve. Bernadine has an unspecified disability that suggests she is unable to care for herself and Lady Holmes's two youngest daughters are both disinclined to marry. Charlotte outright rejects marriage because it is clear to her that marriage in nineteenth century English society is an inherently unequal and unfair institution in which the woman almost always loses. She does not entirely reject men or romance. There is at least one man who captures her attention, but more than anything Charlotte wants freedom.

When her father refuses to support her education - Charlotte had hoped to become a headmistress at a girls' school which would have given her some degree of freedom, financial and otherwise - Charlotte decides to make herself unfit for marriage by engaging in a dalliance with a married man. Charlotte's plan works a little too well and she finds herself not only ruined for marriage but also publicly disgraced. Livia comes to her sister's defense, accusing the mother of Charlotte's lover of ruining Charlotte's reputation. When the elderly woman dies shortly thereafter Livia becomes a suspect, at least in the court of public opinion. Charlotte realizes the best way to help her sister is to help the police find the real murderer. Of course the detectives of Scotland Yard would be skeptical of the opinions of a woman and so Charlotte adopts the persona of a man - Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Holmes writes lots of helpful letters to the police. Unfortunately he is too ill to ever meet anyone in person...

I love a book that entertains me and makes me think on multiple levels. A Study in Scarlet Women definitely did that. One of the many things that I found interesting were the gender and sexual politics. Most of couplings are unhappy, forced, or otherwise result in some sort of misfortune: an unplanned pregnancy, social and financial ruin, hopelessly mismatched husband and wives. Not surprisingly it is usually the women, though not always, who suffer the brunt of these couplings. I'm not sure which is a more damming commentary on the institution of marriage and gender inequality: that the way Charlotte escapes the institution is by not being a virgin or that another character thinks the best way he can help Charlotte after her disgrace is by offering to make her his mistress and thereby save her from financial ruin. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first introduced Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet in 1887. In that story Sherlock Holmes and John Watson set out to figure out how a man was killed when there is no visible wounds on the corpse, who that man was, and what he was doing in London. It comes out that the man, and a second who is later killed, were from Utah. There was woman whom they thought should marry one of them. The woman, however, was in love with a third man. The woman's father supported her choice in husbands. (Or maybe supported is too generous. Let's just say the father had reasons for not wanting his daughter to marry either of the first two men.) So the two men killed the father in order to get to the daughter. The daughter eventually dies too. Holmes figures out that the death of the two men in London is tied to their pasts in Utah. This is a long way of saying that I loved how Sherry Thomas incorporated elements of Doyle's original story - namely the marriage plot point and the issue of consent - and re-imagined it in her equally compelling novel.

I really loved this! Of the four Sherlock Holmes inspired, re-imagined or otherwise related novels I've read in the last month, this is my favorite. It managed to be both modern and yet fitting for its Victorian time period. I'm so glad this is going to be a series. Sherry Thomas - I'm ready for book two in the Lady Sherlock series, and while you're at, books three, four, five, and so on.