Mrs Hudson and the Blue Daisy Affair (A Holmes & Hudson Mystery)
This is the fifth in the series that features the famous duo Holmes and Watson, but these novels are slanted from the perspective of their two female domestic servants—the equally canonical Mrs. Hudson and the unlikely named maid Flotsam (which serves as both her given and family name) who narrates the story in the first person. Flotsam, aged just 17, is intelligent and articulate, and is often employed by Holmes more as a PA/secretary than a humble housemaid. Hence, she has a good perspective into many of their cases as observer and enlightened commentator, and there is also enhanced involvement by the astute, streetwise Mrs. Hudson, who always seems to intuitively know just what is going on.
There appears upon the London scene a potential rival to the great Sherlock Holmes who wows society with several successes in solving some crimes. When the matter that is known as the Blue Daisy Affair is apparently solved by the newcomer, then it seems that Holmes’s reputation as the country’s leading detective is indeed under acute threat.
While some of the situations and cases that are brought to the attention of Holmes and Watson seem a little contrived, the author has the characters of both the detectives accurately rendered and creates an entertaining, if perhaps not always entirely accurate milieu of late 19th-century London. The story rattles on in congenial fashion and is an undemanding read.
