Murder on Cold Street (The Lady Sherlock Series)
Will we ever tire of variations on a Sherlock Holmes theme? Not likely. In the Lady Sherlock series by bestselling author Sherry Thomas, the famous sleuth is recast as a woman, who presents herself to the world as the sister of the great (but reclusive) detective. Acting as his eyes and ears, Charlotte Holmes solves murders all the while giving credit to this nonexistent brother.
In this fifth book of the series, Holmes must solve the case of a London inspector who refuses to explain himself when found in a locked room with a gun and two dead bodies. She looks for clues, makes deductions, and dons disguises as we have come to expect from any Holmesian character, but she is just as much a psychological huntress, parsing the truth from things people say and, more importantly, what they don’t say. In the process, she finds the villains (Moriarty makes an appearance) and exposes the ways racism and patriarchy in Victorian England stifle and oppress women, from a mixed-race scientist to the female heir of a major company. However, not all the men are bullying misogynists. Her friend Lord Ingram happily defers to Holmes’ expertise and at the same time tempts her with a romance that has been simmering and sometimes boiling over since their first kiss when she was thirteen. Holmes’s admiration for him has also not diminished, especially as she watches him move through a room with the “lightness and muscularity of a thoroughbred.” Thomas’s skillful writing delivers many such deft observations, creating a satisfying story that entertains us while also revealing a world in which a remarkable woman must hide her talents behind a man’s name.
