Just in time for Sherlock Holmes's 166th birthday, the fifth installment in national bestselling author Vicki Delany's Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery takes Sherlockania to the max with a Holmes convention and historic 221 Baker Street.
Gemma Doyle and her friends travel to London for a Sherlock Holmes convention--but will Gemma's father take the fall for a felonious forger's fatality?
The 6th of January is Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and lucky for Gemma Doyle, January is also the slowest time of the year at both the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, and Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. It's a good time for Gemma and her friends to travel to England for a Holmes Convention. For Gemma, the trip provides an opportunity to visit her parents, Jayne Wilson is excited about seeing all the sites London has to offer, and Ryan Ashburton just wants to spend some time with Gemma. But the trip is immediately derailed when Gemma's father Henry recognizes his brother-in-law Randolph Denhaugh, who disappeared more than thirty years ago on the night he stole a valuable painting from his own parents.
Henry, a retired detective with Scotland Yard, has been keeping tabs on the man's career as a forger of Old Masters and he warns Randy to stay away from his family. It's up to Gemma, with the help of her friends, to plunge into the "lowest and vilest alleys" of London to save her father from prison.
There's a Murder Afoot is the 5th Sherlock Holmes Bookshop cozy by Vicki Delany. Released 7th Jan 2020 by Crooked Lane, it's 336 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. The ebook format includes an interactive table of contents with chapter headings. I've become very fond of interactive ebooks lately.
This series is full of fun and over-the-top Holmes tie-ins and trivia. The plot revolves around a convention of Sherlockians of all stripes meeting in London (the one in England). Gemma Doyle (possibly related to the one-and-only) and family and friends are in London for the convention, or some sightseeing.
There are some new characters along with the ensemble cast from previous books in the series and the author manages to make them all distinct and easy to differentiate. There were plenty of suspects from which to choose, the violence isn't graphic, the dialogue is clean and the denouement/solution was appealing and felt complete. There's some foreshadowing for the next book(s) in the series and it ends well.
I'm looking forward to finding out what comes next for Gemma & co. Genuinely enjoyable cozy reading.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
