Lock & Mori - by Heather W. Petty

My rating: 

I'm a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories and love the BBC show, so I'm always interested in a new take on the character. Lock & Mori is a young adult novel with a couple of variations from the original. First of all, it's set in modern-day London and Sherlock and Moriarty are both in high school. The biggest change though is that in Petty's story Moriarty, or Mori as she's known, is a girl.

I thought this was a solid first novel, and I was totally on board with the developing romance between Sherlock and Mori. Petty did a good job of not only bringing these characters into the modern day but also imagining what they would be like as teenagers. Both the main characters are, fittingly, pretty brilliant, but definitely still in the awkward teenage phase and it totally works. I especially loved Mori's character because in this novel she is a well-developed, nuanced character with some really dark stuff going on her life. To start out, her mother recently died and now her father has become an alcoholic who beats her younger brothers and verbally abuses Mori when she tries to stand up for them. And that's just the beginning. While she's still extremely intelligent, Mori in this novel is much less predictable than Sherlock. With so many personal issues going on, she makes a lot of questionable decisions without stopping to logically think through how things will turn out. For me, this made her character a bit easier to relate to and sympathize with because there are times when she acts purely on emotion.

Now, onto the plot. As you would expect from a Sherlock retelling, the plot centers around a murder mystery. Sherlock and Mori team up to see if they can solve the case on their own, but Mori ends up keeping some secrets along the way. Petty's writing was really compelling and made me want to finish this book as quickly as possible. For me, this made up for the fact that parts of the mystery were a bit predictable. Also, like I mentioned, there's some romance to this story that you don't see in many Sherlock retellings. The romance between the two main characters developed quickly, but still felt natural to me. I also liked that, while this a decent amount of romance throughout, it doesn't take away from the murders as the main focus of the story.

Lock & Mori is the first book in what will eventually be a series, with two more books planned. From Petty's website it looks like we can expect about a year between each, with the next books planned for fall 2016 and fall 2017. Unlike most series I read, I actually went into this one knowing that it's not yet finished. I was somewhat hesitant, but Lock & Mori was definitely worth it. I also felt like the ending had just enough of cliffhanger to make me want more, but not so much that I was outraged about not being able to read the second book.

Shades of London Series - by Maureen Johnson

My rating: 

Since I'm behind on writing reviews, I'm going to cheat a bit and review this series as a whole. I actually checked out the first book, The Name of the Star, without realizing it was part of a series. I had just heard that it was a young adult book about Jack the Ripper, and put it on my to-read list.

The Name of the Star was actually a lot different than I was expecting. Without really knowing anything about the book other than it featured Jack the Ripper I was thinking historical fiction. The modern day setting was a surprise, but a pleasant one. I really enjoyed Rory Deveaux as the main character because she comes across as a very normal teen and very believable as a realistic character. Even when she becomes involved the mystery surrounding the Ripper murders, she still worries about the boy she might like and trying to pass her classes. The supernatural aspect also made this book a lot of fun and was a twist on the copycat killer plot line that I haven't read before.

The second book, The Madness Underneath, picks up as Rory is recovering from the attack by the Jack the Ripper copycat. She's forced to see a therapist even though she can't actually tell them that she can see ghosts, or that it was actually a ghost that attacked her. Eventually though, the Shades (the group of ghost hunters Rory's friends belong to) are able to pull some strings and get her back to school in London. My only complaint about this book is that not much happened in terms of the plot. All the characters were still great, but once Rory got back to Wexford I was expecting more to happen.

Even though the second book wasn't as great as I expected, I feel like The Shadow Cabinet more than makes up for it. After the cliffhanger ending of the previous book, we jump straight into the action as Rory tries to figure out how to find the ghost of one of her friends. Nobody even knows if Rory's theory worked, and maybe the ghost they're all looking for doesn't exist. Rory's school nemesis, Charlotte, is still missing after being kidnapped by Jane and her cult of followers. It also seems like they might be covering up the mass murder of ten people over forty years earlier. This book is just one surprise after another and the ending is no exception. Unfortunately for me, I read the first book thinking it was a standalone, then moved onto the second thinking I was getting into a trilogy. Now I have to endure the long wait for a fourth book.

Even though these weren't the necessarily the best books I've ever read, I'm still going to give the series a 5 paw rating just because of how invested in them I became. All three books had me staying up all night just so I could get to the end without having to take a break and it's been awhile since I've stayed up all night to finish one book, much less three in a row.

The Ice Princess - by Camilla Läckberg

My rating:

I don't remember exactly how I heard about this book, but it had been on my to-read list for quite some time when I finally got it from the library (as an audiobook). Läckberg's first novel introduces us to Erica Falck, a writer who has recently returned to her hometown of Fjallbacka to take care of things after her parents death. Coincidentally, her childhood friend, Alex Wijkner, is found dead while Erica is in town and Alex's parents ask Erica to write a memoir about their daughter. This inspires Erica to look into the details of her friend's life as well as her death, which turns out to be a murder. Along the way, Erica becomes close with another acquaintance from her childhood in Fjallbacka, Patrik Hedstrom. Patrik is now working as a detective for the local police and he and Erica begin to collaborate, at least somewhat, on theories about Alex's murder. Together, the two begin to unravel the secrets of Alex's life as well as the secrets of many others in Fjallbacka. In a small, tight-knit town, it starts to seem like everyone has some relation to the murder.

I really enjoyed this book, although having it as an audiobook meant it took me a little time to get used to the pronunciation of all the Swedish names and towns. Like her character Erica, it seems like Läckberg is interested not only in writing a murder mystery but also looking at the psychological motivations behind people's actions. We get to see not only the motivations for actions directly related to the murder, but just the general thoughts of several characters. Some people might find this tedious, but I really didn't mind. The characters weren't always the most exciting, but seeing their very mundane or even shallow preoccupations made them seem like very normal people to me. My main pet peeve was that Läckberg would often have a character, usually Erica or Patrik, discover an important clue, but not disclose it to the reader. This did make for more suspense, but meant that at times it was almost impossible to even attempt to work out the mystery. I would definitely still recommend this book, though, and I will definitely be reading more from Läckberg.