Lane, Andrew. Black Ice (Young Sherlock Holmes #3)22 January 2013, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
When Sherlock's brother Mycroft is found coming out of a locked room at the Diogenes Club, wherein lies a dead man, he is arrested and imprisoned. Sherlock and his tutor, Amyus Crowe, can figure out that Mycroft has been drugged and the man has killed himself in a clever way, but the police refuse to believe them. Mycroft thinks that the man is somehow involved in a vast land purchase in the US, and once his club pays bail, he takes off to Russia to try to figure things out. He and Mycroft are touring with some musicians, but of course get drawn into further dangers and mysteries. Characters from the past reappear, and Sherlock learns a lot about interpreting events and appearances.
Strengths: Really liked Death Cloud as well as Rebel Fire, and am glad to see the British cover win out, since the ones with the Justin Bieber lookalikes were sort of laughable. These would be great summer reads for middle school students, interspersed with some actual Conan Doyle.
Weaknesses: Once Mycroft was released from prison, this lost its immediacy for me. I also found Crowe's dialect to be annoyin'. The man drops every single "g". Hmmm.
So what's the deal with kids liking Sherlock Holmes? This has been a question in my mind for years. I do remember reading Sherlock Holmes when I was a kid because I read mysteries. But there are masses of books for kids to read now, and the original Sherlock Holmes doesn't seem to have that much to offer young readers.
ReplyDeleteThough I recognize that this particular book is the "young" Sherlock Holmes.