In the latest Daughter of Sherlock Holmes novel, Joanna Holmes must confront a shocking case of blackmail that threatens the highest levels of His Majesty’s government, as this USA Today bestselling mystery series continues.

In the latest installment of this acclaimed series, Sherlock Holmes’s daughter faces an elaborate mystery that threatens the second most powerful man in His Majesty’s government. His position is such that he answers only to the king and the prime minister.

During the height of the Great War, Joanna Holmes and the Watsons receive a late-night, clandestine visit from Sir William Radcliffe, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who brings with him an agonizing tale of blackmail; a case so sensitive that it can only be spoken of in the confines of 221B Baker Street.

An unknown individual has come into possession of salacious photographs, which not only sullies the family name, but may force the chancellor to vacate his seat on the War Council where his advice is most needed. The blackmailer has in their possession revealing photographs that show Sir William’s granddaughter in romantic encounters with a man other than the aristocrat to whom she is engaged to marry. Should the pictures be released to the public, the wedding would be immediately called off, and the prospect of the granddaughter ever finding a suitable husband would vanish.

Sir William's family has been forced to pay exorbitant sums for several of the photographs, but even more salacious pictures remain in the blackmailer’s possession—and will no doubt carry greater demands and threats. Scotland Yard cannot be involved, for fear of public disclosure. It thus falls on the shoulders of Joanna and the Watsons to expose the blackmailer and procure the photographs before irreparable harm comes to the chancellor and his family.

My Review:

The affair, in fact, was considerably more scandalous than first presented – and that situation was plenty salacious enough.

All the more so as this eighth entry in The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes series takes place during the winter of 1918, as German bombs are dropping all over London. The United States had entered the war mere months before, and the Germans were hoping to break the back of the Allies before the U.S. could bring their far superior numbers to bear. History knows how that worked for both sides, but in the winter of 1918, the residents of London sheltering in basements and Underground stations certainly did not.

A scandal at the highest levels had the potential to rock a government that needed stability and clear thinking to wrap up the “Great War”. So when Mrs. Joanna Blalock Watson, along with the Doctors Watson, her husband and father-in-law, were called to the home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a case, they all knew it had to be an important one.

Or at least a case that has importance because of who is caught up in its web. The Exchequer controls the purse strings of the empire, visiting a scandal upon the Chancellor’s own household will have far-reaching consequences – even if the scandal itself is merely the exposure of a reckless young woman’s thoughtless behavior.

Because her illustrious grandfather is being blackmailed to keep her scandal out of the press. One salacious photograph – and 5,000 pounds sterling – at a time. (That’s $100,000 in today’s money and the amount was for a single installment of which many more were sure to come.)

At first the case seems not simple but at least obvious. The young woman in the photos appears to be just a bit ‘out of it’, whether due to the unwitting consumption of too much champagne or the unknowing ingestion of the early 20th century equivalent of ‘date rape’ drugs. She appears to have been posed in various compromising positions without any awareness of the hidden camera capturing her ‘shame’.

It’s only as Joanna digs deeper into the case that she learns that very little of what she’s been presented with is as it first appears – and that none of the narrators of the tale with which she’s been presented have been remotely reliable.

And that the spider at the heart of this web has been playing a much longer game than even the Great Detective himself might have imagined.

Escape Rating B: I picked this up this week because I’ve read the whole series so far (I am STILL a sucker for a Holmes story), and while I’ve had mixed feelings, on balance I’ve generally liked the stories – usually with a few quibbles along the way. And this week I’m still battling a cold that just won’t go away so I was looking for a story that I’d be able to get into from the outset and knew that this would fill that bill admirably.

As it mostly did.

The mystery was certainly more than twisty enough – even though AND especially because it was clear from the outset that the young lady in the photos was holding back information that Joanna would need to solve the mystery. Although most of that turned out to be unwitting because, well, she was. Or at least extremely naive. Or both. Definitely both.

Because the young woman is intended as the victim, I felt like I was supposed to feel for her. And I did at first, but in the end I didn’t. It’s not that she was foolish, because that happens. And she certainly was very foolish. But she was also very complicit, and that’s when I stopped feeling for her as much as the story wants the reader to feel. Because it all felt like the problems of the rich and she’s going to be well taken care of no matter how responsible she is for the mess she’s gotten her family into. It felt like the case was only important because its exposure would cost her grandfather his position, which was only of such supreme importance as it was because of the war. And I wish the story had gone down that path because it would have made more sense.

At the same time, the true villain of this piece was a very smart, very small, very grey little man who was clearly a sociopath. He was so nondescript as an individual that his evil was much, much bigger than he was – to the point where I don’t know how he contained it all. Also, he remained so much in the shadows that we only get glimmers of a sense of his nature through his acts and it just wasn’t enough.

Not that it wasn’t interesting and different to have a tiny little figure be such a towering villain – so to speak – and not that it’s not good to see something different in villainy than a whole lot of bwa-ha-ha monologues and grandstanding, but he really was a bit of a whimper even though he was really, really adept at making other people whimper.

In the end, this wasn’t bad at all, and I did get caught up in it more than enough to ignore my cold for a couple of hours, but it didn’t reach the heights of either the first book in the series, The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes, or my other favorite, the next most recent book, The Wayward Prince.

But I was more than entertained enough that I’ll be back for the next outing in this series, whatever and whenever it turns out to be!