A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

Lord Ingram and Charlotte have a long history together, and a great deal of unresolved emotional and sexual tension. At the start of this book, she is hired by Lord Ingram’s wife. The mystery setup is pretty simple: Charlotte solves crimes both nefarious and domestic as “Sherlock” Holmes, posing in an elaborately staged ruse as the assistant to her brother, who is ill and must remain in bed.

Watson and the other women in the story are so interesting, I recommend you read it either way. But Scarlet Women is so enjoyable, and explains so much of why Charlotte and Mrs. Some of the events are summarized quickly, or the significance of a scene related to the prior book is explained economically without unnecessary and awkward exposition, so as a reader you won’t miss much. So I think this book can be read without having read book one in the series. I don’t remember what I was wearing yesterday or what day or year it is I remember exactly two scenes from A Study in Scarlet Women, and both involved Charlotte eating something (she loves pastry, especially in times of turmoil). As a result, I entered this novel with a happy anticipation because I loved the characters and the reinvention of Sherlock Holmes as Charlotte Holmes, but I also entered with next to no memory of what happened in book one. I think so, though I’m not an entirely trustworthy source because I did read book one, and I really enjoyed it. I know there has been some question as to whether this can be read as a stand-alone. Hence my worried brain waking up to fuss about it at 3:30. The mess that mystery creates is not, and it leaves characters I care about in an uncertain place. To put it another way, the mystery is resolved by the final page. Obviously this book is not a romance, but enough is sad and uncertain at the end, my readerly brain struggled with the ending, though the major points of the story are resolved.

Then I woke up around 3:30am the night after I finished it, my brain spinning and unhappy, similar to the way I woke up after seeing Wonder Woman, fixating on the scene after the mustard gas. I followed this book where it led me and was extremely content. Everything that I found so enthralling about the first book in this series, A Study in Scarlet Women, I found here: layers of meaning, thoughtful scenes and pieces of dialogue, multi-faceted examinations of simple but painful concepts, a wickedly sharp through-line of feminism and subversion, and the sense that each scene and word was placed deliberately, with additional meaning. I was so absorbed in this novel, I read it in one long, very lovely day, the kind of weekend day where you look back with a sort of awed gratitude that you spent most of the daylight hours reading happily. Genre: Historical: European, Mystery/Thriller

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas