The Mummy of Mayfair (An Irregular Detective Mystery, 2)
In this expertly crafted and satisfying Sherlockian pastiche, former Baker Street Irregular Timothy Badger and his partner, Benjamin Watson, team up to solve the murder of an amateur Egyptologist. When Dr. Enoch Sawyer hires the team to provide security at a mummy-unwrapping party he is hosting, the pair are as shocked as the other guests when the doctor’s dead body is found in the sarcophagus instead. Once again, Badger and Watson find themselves following in the footsteps of their mentor, Sherlock Holmes, in order to investigate a murder.
While Holmes both advises the fledgling detectives and backs them financially, Badger and Watson solve the case using their own talents: Badger is intuitive, impulsive, and as his name suggests, dogged, while Watson is a measured man of science. Ably aided by the society lady-turned-journalist Ellsie Littleton, the detectives uncover a sordid underbelly of drug use, body snatching, and embezzlement among the rich and powerful.
Westerson neatly balances the guilty pleasures of Egyptomania and aristocratic dinner parties with the moral ambiguities involved in classism, racism, and colonialism. And Badger must face a deepening moral quandary when he confronts the involvement of another former Irregular, Wiggins. But just as Holmes is never allowed to overwhelm the detection, Westerson never allows her clear-eyed analysis of historical injustices to get in the way of a solidly enjoyable whodunnit.
