Preamble
If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction, take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: order now!
See also
These lists capture other stories and characters that I thought of as I was reading this piece. I won’t explain why, to avoid spoilers, but they’re associations and not ‘if you liked this, then you’ll love…’ recommendations!
- The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
- Scorpion
- Mary Morstan in the BBC Sherlock
Review
I’m grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book, publishing in January 2024.
I may study detective fiction, but I’m not snobby. I love a good formulaic procedural as much as a nuanced, prestige limited series. So, here I am, more or less finishing out the year of detective fiction reading with a James Patterson, of all things! But who could resist this title?
I love a good reinvention, from all the many Holmes-es (Charlotte Holmes, Miss Sherlock, etc.) to all the various Van der Valks and Professor T’s out there. This first in what I assume will be an extended series where Patterson and Sitts attempt a triple reinvention: of Sherlock Holmes, Miss (Jane) Marple, and … Auguste Dupin…? Brendan Mark Holmes, Margaret Marple, and Auguste Poe. Did they not trust us to recognise Dupin, here, and so kept Auguste and replaced the detective’s name with the author’s? Who knows. The inconsistency niggles a little, though, as if the reader is either being condescended to or baited.
I enjoy some of the quirks of well-manufactured examples of this genre, in particular the short chapters, which make this easy to drop in and out of as a commuter read. There is detectively knowingness in all the ways you would expect. The characters are thinly drawn but recognisable, like in all good AU fanfiction, and recognisably distinct from each other. There is inexplicable wealth and an almost preternaturally capable assistant who appears partway through. All the tropes are slotting in nicely. On the other hand, there are odd little celebrity namedrops (Alicia Keys and Adrian Brody…), which I suspect are a Patterson thing, but I haven’t read much of his recent output to know for sure.
My primary issue with this was the excess of cases that get introduced over the course of a relatively short book. We have the breakthrough case that introduces Holmes, Marple and Poe to New York—the murder of a young lawyer—and then an assortment of additional ones: grisly cross-generational serial killings; the murder of a young immigrant in the building they now occupy; the theft of two priceless books from an unsavoury billionaire; bringing down an art thief who begins to threaten them; the kidnapping of a man and his stepdaughter; and the murder of a young model from Texas. (And I do wonder whether I’ve forgotten one or two, although I only finished reading yesterday.)
Some of these weave together, so could reasonably have been combined, but most of them do not. I think these could have been pared back and still achieved the same amount of character development/introduction (which seemed to be their primary purpose).
If you enjoy nineteenth-century historical fiction, take a look at my short story collection featuring Victorian “lady detective” Meinir Davies: order now!
Dominique Gracia 
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