It’s their toughest case yet. And their best detective is missing. Holmes, Margaret and Poe run the private detective agency that solves the crimes no one else can. Or they did – until Holmes said he wanted to leave the business and fell off the radar. In New York City, they are called to investigate the abduction of six newborns from a private hospital. Without Holmes, they try to investigate this terrible crime. They hear word of more missing babies in London, and Margaret follows the trail across the pond. But they need Holmes. To solve the crime of the century, first they must save their friend.

My Review:

Brendan Holmes isn’t actually missing when this followup to the surprising and fascinating Holmes, Marple & Poe, begins. Because Marple and Poe both know exactly where their partner is.

The problem is that he’s upstate drying out from his unfortunate resemblance to the ‘Great Detective’ for whom he is named. Or has named himself. Sherlock Holmes wasn’t precisely addicted to his ‘seven percent solution’ of cocaine – but he did get a bit too close to the line when he got bored.

Brendan Holmes, on the other hand, is certainly addicted to heroin. Or he was before he committed himself to Lake View. And he’s fine now – at least while he’s there. The peace and quiet has been good for him. He’s just not sure whether he can maintain once he gets back on the job. He’s also not sure AT ALL if he still has the mojo FOR the job. His cure for heroin is the prescription drug buprenorphine and he’s certain that the side effects dull his hyper-cognition to the point that he can’t make the extremely rapid connections that his partners need him to make as the ‘brains’ of their team.

A set of talents which they desperately need, every bit as much as the public desperately needs to believe that they are all on the top of their respective games and putting everything they each have into solving the abduction of SIX newborn babies from the supposedly secure maternity ward of an expensive private hospital.

Clearly it wasn’t all that secure, as Margaret Marple proves much, much too easily for the hospital’s reputation. Although that doesn’t even begin to solve the case, no matter how clever she is at putting the pieces of how it was done together.

Once she learns that there was a much too similar case in London, she’s also created at least a partial picture of why it was done. The babies, in spite of the wealth of their parents and the presumptions of the NYPD, were not kidnapped for ransom. They were stolen – as merchandise.

Making the case all that much darker and considerably more dangerous. There is a lot of money in human trafficking, and even more in trafficking babies to order. Which is when Margaret Marple starts putting the pieces together into a nasty as well as deadly conclusion.

Even as BOTH of her partners are falling apart.

Escape Rating A-: It’s not just that Holmes is missing, although the questions about precisely what it is that Brendan Holmes is missing and trying to recapture are an integral part of this story – and probably the ones to follow. Auguste Poe, for the most part, is physically present but mentally and emotionally absent in a place that he never expected to be – and in a way that makes this case hit MUCH harder for him than he EVER expected.

Poe’s lover, NYPD Detective Lieutenant Helene Grey, is pregnant, and with twins. He NEVER expected to be a father, did not at all think it was a good idea for him to attempt to be a parent, and reacted BADLY. So badly that she leaves him and leaves no forwarding address, believing that he’s not good for her or their babies until and unless he gets his shit together.

And she’s not wrong.

Meanwhile, Holmes has raced off on a separate case of his own – and he’s also not wrong in that his brain is NOT firing on all the cylinders he needs it to be.

Margaret Marple is left pretty much holding the bag in this case, and a terrible one it is. And, of course, her own attention is divided as both of her partners are behaving surprisingly idiotically for two such supposedly smart men. Even geniuses get surprised by their emotions now and again. Possibly because they suppress those emotions so damn much and often.

These people are ALL hot messes. Even Margaret Marple, although we don’t see nearly as much of her mess in this book as she’s MUCH too busy picking up the pieces of both of her work partners’ all too frequent dereliction of duty because of theirs.

But all of that just makes for a painfully fascinating ‘whodunnit’ and ‘whydunnit’ every step of the way – even if I didn’t personally enjoy this one quite as much as I did the first, I was still riveted to Holmes’ personal mess as well as the overall mystery and Marple’s dogged pursuit of its resolution..

Howsomever, as much as I hate the advertising subtitle that has been used for marketing this book, I was one of those readers clamoring for a sequel. I picked up that first book, Holmes, Marple & Poe, because of the inclusion of Holmes (a Holmes, any Holmes) in spite of my previous total lack of interest in anything by the primary author. (I tried once, bounced off hard, never expected to return yet here I am, returning.)

I’m also unexpectedly grateful that the ending of this second book (one that I never expected to exist), introduced a character who guarantees that the series will continue. Brendan Holmes, along with his colleagues, has found – or rather been found by – his very own, personal, Moriarty. An arch-nemesis who owes considerably more to the absolute psycho characterization of the TV series Sherlock than the “Napoleon of crime” of the original canon.

It’s an introduction which is guaranteed to set up plenty of utter insanity in the cases to come. May they be many and as fascinating as the starting books in this series!