CBR BINGO: Free! Square (Library Book) Huzzah! It’s BINGO season. The most wonderful time of the year!
Man. I love these books. This is the fifth book in Thomas’ Lady Sherlock Series. It’s a gift that keeps giving when you really fall in love with a group of characters that inhabit a book series. As always, if you haven’t read ’em, what are you waiting for? As this is the fifth book in the series, spoilers inevitably follow.
In this installment, Charlotte and her posse are back in London after a brief respite from all of the book 4 shenanigans. Lord Ingram’s divorce is imminent and having emerged from years of unhappiness and worry, he’s ready to take Charlotte on whatever terms she will allow. Charlotte is confused as much by this new more pliable Lord Ingram as with her own pesky feelings. No time to sort that all out just yet though, because judgmental associate, Inspector Treadles, has been caught in a locked room with two dead bodies and the murder weapon. Somewhere under layers of misogyny, embezzlement, dallying servants and hidden gifts lies the truth.
Thomas weaves gender politics into the mystery here as she does in the rest of the series. This time she delves even deeper into the institution of marriage: The women who resist the notion that they must have a male provider and protector as well as those who are left alone without money or the position to protect themselves.
I’m not really a huge mystery lover even though I seem to have to fallen into the rabbit hole with many mystery series (Lady Sherlock, Veronica Speedwell, Parasol Protectorate). I come for the sass, witty banter and sexual tension. I am also not a fan of the source material here. I tried Doyle, I tried, but the OG Sherlock is not my bag. Brew me a cup of tea and pass the crumpets (maximum tolerable chins be damned!), I am 100% behind Charlotte Holmes.