Conspiracy in Belgravia

 

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It might be my fault that I can't quite bump this up to 4 stars. It has been quite awhile since I read the first installment and though Thomas tries to fill in the gaps, there was plenty I felt I was missing. But also, there are 3 mysteries going on here, as well as her sister's book, so that I often had to ask myself--who is Mrs. Morris again? who is impersonating whom?, etc. Also, the pacing could drag at times. Codes can be exciting but whenever there was a description about them, it ground the book to a halt. (Also, how does a dying man glue rice in Braille on his coat as he is dying?). That being said, I find most retellings of Sherlock to be entertaining, and once I got the characters straightened out, this one was as entertaining as any of them. Thomas' premise is a bit more convoluted than most--Charlotte stands in as sister to a non-existent bed-ridden Sherlock because women won't be taken seriously. Indeed, much of the plotlines revolve around preconceived notions of what women should and should not do and how men react to those roles. Also, I love that Charlotte loves food and indulges as much as possible--she is not stick-thin, physically adept, or even all that fashionable. It's nice to have an "imperfect" heroine, who plays to her strengths and doesn't mind her weaknesses.

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She was invisible enough as it was without placing herself in the shadow of such luminosity.