Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders

Where did I go this week? Well, I was trying to catch up on reading. When my mom guest-reviewed a Sherlock Holmes book for me, it made me nostalgic for when I read Larry Millett's Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon some years back. I knew Larry had written additional Sherlock Holmes novels, all taking place in Minnesota, since then, but had never got around to reading them. This one, the first sequel, came out back in 1998, so no one is going to be recommending this to people who only read new books.

I haven't had as much time to read this week as I would like, so I'm less than halfway through it so far. As of this book, Larry's gift for writing Sherlock's dialogue was still sharp and his period research was superb (one of the fun bits is reading the end notes and guessing which notes are true and which ones he made up). I think we know who the murderer was already, but I have no clue which suspect hired him to do it.

A couple quibbles -- the title itself is a spoiler; I'm already 144 pages in and there's been only one murder we know of. I'm also bothered by the prominent role of rival local detective, Shadwell Rafferty. It feels a lot like the author is setting up Shadwell to be the lead in his own series of spin-off novels after this, which feels way too manipulative for my liking. I hope I'm wrong.

It's maybe not as strong as Red Demon was, but if you love Sherlock Holmes, or you love Minnesota, this series must be tried!