2024 Reading Challenge

2024 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 1 book toward her goal of 285 books.
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2023 Reading Challenge

2023 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 5 books toward her goal of 265 books.
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Book Review: The Wilhelm Conspiracy by Charles Veley

I love Sherlock Holmes stories – the originals, obviously, and many of the newer additions to the genre. Whenever I see a new title pop up, I race to check it out – Holmes has become so much a part of the popular imagination that there are new titles nearly every week it seems… I had purchase the first book in this particular series (The Last Moriarty) a while back and had it on my kindle but somehow it got buried and I forgot about it. Then I saw this, a sequel, available on NetGalley. I requested it, then hurried to read the earlier story (since I’m obsessed with reading series books in order) so I could get to it. TLM was interesting – well plotted, if a bit overly done at times – and while it wasn’t my favorite of the newer Holmes books, I did enjoy the addition of Lucy James enough to want to check out this one.

Disappointment doesn’t even begin to cover it, unfortunately.

I just couldn’t get into this one. Not only did not finish it – I didn’t even get a quarter through it… It just felt rehashed and flat to me. Lucy was a little too sparkle-in-her-eyes, Sherlock a little too predictable (which, for the Great Man, is likely one of the worst insults imaginable but it fits), Watson a little too cozy-mystery staid. The compulsion to throw myriad famous people who lived coincident with Holmes’ timeframe into the story felt forced this time around. Even Tesla – notoriously intriguing in real life – was dull to me this time ’round. The plot couldn’t hold me, either. It should have – the battles over electricity and its potential are actually very interesting parts of American history to me, but somehow even that didn’t sparkle (pun intended – and groan admitted)..

It is possible that I’m on Sherlock overload, I suppose… I also just reviewed Lyndsay Faye’s latest (The Whole Art of Detection) and am furiously working my way through Laurie R. King’s incredible Holmes/Mary Russell series at the moment. While TLM wasn’t my favorite Holmes book, I did enjoy it enough to give Veley’s Holmes/James books another try – just not right now…

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