All She Wrote: Holmes & Moriarity, Book 2
Sometimes I really hate computers. I just lost a 15 paragraph review by hitting the wrong two buttons in a row. So this will be shorter:
This sounds like the previous book but it's not the same at all and it's even better. There's more action and danger. This is not a traditional cozy mystery like the last one. They are not isolated, Holmes has been asked there, there are only a handful of people at the event and the shindig is not that important. Although I figured it out really early on, I still really enjoyed the book. There is real danger, for both of them, and there's a lot of that sweet, worrying about each other's safety that I so adore.
As is typical of Lanyon, this is a smart book. There are a lot of literary references, and a couple I must admit I didn’t know. The humor tends to be dry and often refers to literature. But sometimes it’s just funny. I laughed out loud so many times I lost count. Here are some parts that got the dogs looking at me funny. All are from pages 18- 20. If you don’t find this funny, you probably won’t find the book that funny.
She put it all together. The case of violent food poisoning that affected her but no one else in the house, the stone urn that fell off a balcony and narrowly missed crushing her, the brakes failing in her car. I heard her out in silence. Well, for me it was silence. Close to silence. I hardly interrupted at all. For me.
“Christopher, would you kindly shut up?” Anna requested at last. “This is my story. I’m trying to tell it my own way. I do know about maintaining proper levels of brake fluid. I have an excellent mechanic.”
[On being told the Anna won’t go to the police basically because the embarrassment would be intolerable.]
Not as intolerable as being dead, in my opinion, but I’m very fond of me. I’d miss me a lot.
“You’re very observant, Christopher.”
“I never noticed.”
The bed itself looked like it had been modified from a sacrificial altar on some obscure Grecian isle . . .
[description of a godawful bed that is ginormous and gaudy]
. . . There was companion furniture, of course, but it seemed to exist merely to keep the bed from brooding over its change in fortune. Stephen King could have written a book about that bed.
Moriarity is such a great lover for Holmes. He isn't co-dependent, he maintains his boundaries, but he's very sweet and very loving and he is there for Holmes when Holmes needs him. He finally calls Holmes on some of his bullshit, which is about time. He is seriously Mr. Perfect. Holmes is neurotic as ever but he's growing and we learn more about why he's the way he is and see him figuring out what's wrong with himself.
The story isn't over and the next one is supposed to be published this year sometime. I can't wait.