Book Review - The Wilhelm Conspiracy (A Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James Mystery)

 

* Audio Review of this review will appear on the Book Review Podcast 'Reading in Bed' at the beginning of June 2022 *

Blurb:

A prominent banker is found dead in an unsavory part of London. Hours later, the charred remains of another body lie on a beach in Dover. Both deaths—and their possible link—attract Sherlock Holmes. Then the Secretary of War summons the detective with catastrophic news whose consequences could harm the nation for generations: on the eve of war, a new British superweapon has fallen into the wrong hands. Holmes must recover it.

Lucy James, an actress and Holmes’s recently discovered grown daughter, has inherited the family sleuthing skills. Despite her father’s objections, she insists on helping him find the weapon and solve the murders. Along with Dr. Watson, they follow the trail to Germany, uncovering a sinister plot that puts them directly in the line of fire. Featuring appearances from real-life notables Nikola Tesla, King Edward VII, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, this electrifying new mystery puts the greatest deductive mind of his era into a race to save the Empire.

Strengths:

First of all, I discovered this series and downloaded the first two books out of interest, but read the second book in error thinking and realised when Lucy was introduced into the book I thought I may as well carry on with this book.

In this ways, this could caused a major problem, but to give the author credit it didn’t jar atall and proved easy enough to read from this book without causing tons of confusion.

I have read some of the original Sherlock Holmes stories from Conan Doyle and did enjoy the way it was shared via the memoirs of Dr John Watson.

Watson’s narrative throughout the book felt perhaps not always historical accurate was I felt got to grips with the original books and I also felt got to grips with his friendship with Holmes and his newly found daughter.

The book itself as it was fairly compact seemed to flow along at a fairly good pace if it had gone on for say 400 pages, it would have proved too much and would have lost my interest I think straight away.

The mystery in the book was perhaps slight, and the logic that Ms James shows throughout the book is overdone, but needed to show that was she was her father’s daughter.

Weaknessess:

A few things, as above the use of Ms James in the book does take away from the two main characters where it felt bringing her into the book had to give her something to do or be involved in the plot more I did feel sometimes and found her sometimes a 21^st century woman more in a narrative from the early 20^th century.

If anybody is looking for a detailed mystery, I worked out who the villian (s) were by about the halfway stage of the book and I am no expect on thriller / mystery books and suspect if my father who does read a lot of these books would have solved the mystery fairly quickly.

Interestingly as a side note too, Telsa one of the main characters in this book was a real life person and also had it is recorded OCD but was not touched on in this book which was a interesting decision at best or badly researched take your pick.

I’ve got other books to read, so whether I would go to read more I am undecided to be honest at the moment, but I did enjoy so it’s got a 8/10.