Mycroft and Sherlock

I read the first of these and had mixed feelings about it, but because I really liked the main characters, Mycroft and Cyrus, I decided to give the second one a try. I'm glad I did, because I enjoyed this book much more than the first. I would rate my enjoyment level at 5/5, but I do see some flaws in the plot's structure, so it's 4/5.

Sherlock joins Mycroft and Cyrus as a major character. He's only 18, and quite an angsty teenager, but I found him mostly endearing and very in-character for canon Sherlock. I liked this interpretation of him at a different age. He's vulnerable and makes mistakes, and he's not really any smarter than Mycroft; he's just amoral and reckless, which gives him more opportunities for heroism. But it feels like the narrative is aware of this fact, and this is really Mycroft's story.

Mycroft here is a guy trying to do his best in life, for his country and for his difficult younger brother, while struggling with some serious personal problems. In a sense, the book is the story of Mycroft giving up on finding happiness for himself, so it has a melancholy feel. There's one prominent female character and Mycroft develops a crush on her. She's a pretty interesting side character, and I was glad she didn't have a larger role, since I strongly disliked the romance plot in the first book.

My problem with the book (big spoiler): I felt the plot with the patriarch's past needed more development. It turned out to be extremely important but I didn't feel it was built up enough. The dead child was the main mystery at first, not the ritualized murders, but the kid felt like an afterthought in the end. I don't think the revenge plot was given enough attention for me to really care about it.

Minor problem (small spoiler): I was hoping the secret about the twins would be much more interesting than it turned out to be.

I love both Cyrus and Mycroft, as well as their friendship, and I also love the fact that Sherlock didn't take over this book. I'm not a big fan of fight scenes, but these were all very good and not too long or frequent. In fact, this book is written like popular crime thrillers, in that it has short chapters and lots of PoV changes, although it's a fairly long book. There is still a lot of flavor of 1870s London, which is what draws me to historical mysteries.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Damian Lynch, and he was fantastic.

Very well done. I truly felt the authors enveloped the tale in the London of that time, and gave new insights into the characters, familiar as they are.

Summary: An 18-year-old Sherlock helps his older brother Mycroft. 

Mycroft and Sherlock is the second in a trilogy of books that started with Mycroft Holmes. That first book followed Mycroft as a young employee of the British War Department seeking to understand why children were dying in the Caribbean. I won't give away any spoilers from that first book, but this second book is several years after the first. Mycroft was able to gain wealth and access to the Queen after his success. And his best friend Douglas was able to start a home for boys (Nicholas House) in memory of the loss of his family.

It is that home for boys that this book begins. Mycroft is frustrated by the young Sherlock's detachment from the world. Mycroft is obsessed with world affairs, economics, and global concerns. Sherlock has no interested in significant world issues; he wants to understand small-level crimes. Mycroft forces Sherlock to spend several days at Douglas' Nicholas House to help him understand his privilege and how the day-to-day concerns of the poor should matter to him. At the same time, Douglas tries to retrieve his goods from a ship that has run aground in suspicious circumstances. Meanwhile, Mycroft has to run an “errand” for the Queen.

The mix of these three tasks leads to a mystery where the interests of all three men converge. There is a disappearance and eventual death of one of the boys from Nicholas House, which interests Sherlock. Douglas recovers most of his goods but discovers a smuggling operation that impacts his work. And Mycroft is concerned about the economics of the realm and a love interest in a Chinese immigrant woman.

The series is more thriller than mystery. And it is an enjoyable book, but in the end, I think it gets a little convoluted. The lack of communication between all of the characters because they are all hiding something from each other is annoying. I know why it was done here, but it is an old trope that people try to protect others by hiding the very information that would help solve the problem, and I have seen that overused lately. I listened to the audiobook of this one after reading the first on Kindle. (That first book is still $1.99 on Kindle). The audio is quality is excellent, and the voices are distinct and appropriate. I will listen to or read the third book fairly soon.