Book Review: The Sherlock Society by James Ponti (The Sherlock Society #1)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Fresh new characters and lots of fun in an inventive mystery

Cons: Some issues with the plot for me, but most kids won’t care

The Bottom Line:

New tween detectives

The story is uneven

But book is still fun

Solve a Case Whole Making New Friends

When I saw James Ponti was starting a new series, I was all in. Especially since it was called The Sherlock Society. That was pretty much all I needed to know. While I did enjoy the book, it did have some flaws. I’m sure the target middle grade audience won’t care. 

For this new series, we are heading to Miami Florida. The main character is Alex Sherlock, who attends middle school with his older sister, Zoe, and his friends Yadi and Lina. As the book opens, school is shutting down for the summer, and Zoe has a brilliant idea for a summer job - become detectives. While her plan doesn’t quite take off as they had envisioned, they are soon on an interesting case looking for a treasure. What will they find?

Right away, the book started out with one of my least favorite literary techniques - starting with exciting action and then flashing back to show us how the characters got there. It felt worse than normal this time to me for some reason. 

Additionally, the plot seems to wander quite a bit. Yes, I get that we are setting up the characters and the premise for the series at the beginning, but even then, I felt like we took longer than we should have to get to the heart of the book. 

Now, this isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty happening over the course of the book. I was intrigued by what the characters were finding. I also like the logical way they were taught to think about their cases. And the climax is great. 

Quite often in middle grade fiction, the characters have inattentive parents. That’s not the case here, and I appreciated how realistic the family dynamic felt. Alex and Zoe’s grandfather, a former reporter, does get involved in the case, and he was a fun addition to the core cast. The characters also face realistic consequences to their actions, which was nice. 

And the characters were fantastic. We get a feel for all of them, and one in particular got some nice growth. The story is narrated from Alex’s first-person point of view. As expected, the author once again creates a group of characters with a solid bond, and I enjoyed hanging out with them. 

Plus there’s the humor. The characters made me laugh multiple times as I was reading.

To be clear, I suspect my issues with the plot are more of an adult’s viewpoint of how things should be. I suspect that kids will be hooked from page one of The Sherlock Society and look forward to the next in this series. I’ll definitely be back for more myself. 

October 5th's Weekly TV Thoughts

Moonflower Murders – I’m not sure I have a lot of comment on with this one.  The story moved forward.  I am definitely interested in what is going on.  But I didn’t feel like there were any great revelations.  If this were real life, I think the missing woman would be dead by now, too.  But since this is fiction, she can still pop up alive.

Rescue: HI-Surf – Since the rescues are actually why I tune in, this was a disappointing episode.  The rescues were shortened in favor of the drama.  And those storylines are pretty predictable.

Survivor – Please, can we get rid of Rome already?  He is driving me up a wall, and I don’t have to live with him 24/7.  I don’t know how his tribe is doing it.  Glad he got rid of his idol already.  Granted, he couldn’t keep it, but still, it was nice to see it gone.  Hope he doesn’t find the next one.

The Challenge – I get the frustration from era 1.  I really do.  I’m rooting for them since I usually root for the underdog.  However, I get the strategy from everyone else.  Eliminating the era is a good thing.  Well, I guess it means if you don’t come in first you automatically go into elimination, so that might be bad.  Era 2 is going to be in trouble is the other two stay together. Since age plays a part in these types of challenges, I’m not surprised to see them winding up so decimated.  Yes, I was happy to finally see Michele fighting in an elimination.  Her arrogance irritates me, so I’m a little disappointed she survived.  But at least she had to step up for a change.

Scabble – I was curious how they were going to turn this into a game show.  It worked, but it didn’t work well enough for me to continue.  I feel like the person who goes second in the second round has an advantage.  Maybe I’m wrong on that, but they have more options in where to put letters and can use them a second time.  Anyway, my curiosity was scratched, and now I can move on.

Trivial Pursuit – This seems like more of a natural game show to me.  We have so many trivia based shows already, after all.  I liked the format and how it played on the game itself.  Not enough to keep watching it, however.  Part of that is the host.  I like LeVar Burton, but he doesn’t translate to a good game show host for me.  I hope all those who wanted him as Jeopardy! host are tuning in here, however, so they can keep watching him in action.

October 4th's Friday Post

Looks like I've been a bit negligent about doing Friday Posts.  Let's fix that this week, shall we?  I'll be linking up to:

Book Beginnings
First Line Friday
Friday 56
Book Blogger Hop

This week, I'll be featuring Send in the Clowns by Julie Mulhern.

This series is set in the 1970's.  It's a lot of fun, as you can see from the beginning.

I've tripped over a body.  I've run over a body.  I've even swum into a body.  I never imagined one would fall on me.

Then again, wandering around a place called The Gates of Hell, what did I expect?

See what I mean?  And when I read that opening, I knew I had to use it to restart my Friday Posts.

Meanwhile, on page 56, we find this:

"Jay and I had a nice time last night, and he mentioned he had four tickets to the ballet tonight. Would you join us?" She tried her best imploring look on me. I was impervious to that look. I'd seen it too often.

Unfortunately, Hunter was no as familiar with Libba's lexicon of expressions. "Of course we'll go." He fell for her please-it'll-be-fun-really-I-promise, hook, line, and sinker.

The ballet? Really?

"It sounds like fun," said Hunter.

No, it didn't.

Is going to the ballet fun?  I'll let you find out for yourself.  My review will be up on Thursday, so I hope you'll come back for it then.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at this week's Book Blogger Hop.  The question is:

Are there any books that you find creepy or unpleasant, even if they aren't horror novels?

The first thing that comes to mind are the Animorphs books.  These were a fantasy series aimed at middle graders about some kids who could morph into animals.  They'd been given the power to fight off an alien invasion.  And some of their encounters with the head alien were freaky.  I had to be careful what part of the book I read before I went to sleep or I'd have nightmares.  And I was reading these as a 20-year-old when they were aimed at people half my age.

(I read about half the series, then the final book came out, I saw how she ended it, and I lost interest since I didn't like the ending.)

That's it for me this week.  Have a great weekend!

Book Review: A Merry Little Murder Plot by Jenn McKinlay (Library Lover’s Mysteries #15)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Great mystery, fun characters, Christmas cheer

Cons: The book banning subplot annoyed me

The Bottom Line:

Visiting author

Combined with Christmas murder

Another fun book

A Shocking Christmas Murder

While we’ve had a book set in December in the Library Lover’s Series, it wasn’t a full-on Christmas book. As a result, I was looking forward to spending the holidays in Briar Creek with A Merry Little Murder Plot. 

It’s hard to believe it, but this is the fifteenth Library Lover’s Mystery from Jenn McKinlay. In that time we’ve really gotten to know Lindsey Norris, the director of the public library, and many other residents. As a fan, it’s always fun to jump in and see what everyone is up to. There are some references to past books, it nothing super spoilery, so if you wanted to jump in here you could. You’ll miss some of the fun character development, however, and you’ll want to go back to the earlier books when you see how much fun you have here. 

The library is hosting their first writer in residence this winter, and they are thrilled to have bestselling author Helen Monroe kicking the program off. She’s just killed off her popular FBI agent character, and she’s promised to reveal what she’s working on next at the end of her residency. 

However, Lindsey’s radar goes off when a stranger comes into the library very interested in meeting Helen. Since Lindsey has had a past experience with a stalker, she’s immediately on guard. But when the two of them meet, sparks fly in a completely unexpected way. Then Lindsey finds a dead body electrocuted by the town’s light display, Lindsey can’t help but ask questions. Will she find the truth?

Let’s get my issue out of the way up front.  There’s a character in this book who wants to ban books, including Helen’s.  Honestly, I’m a little surprised it’s taken this long for the topic to come up in the series.  This becomes a subplot in the book, and every time it was on the page, it annoyed me because it fell into the typical stereotypes.  This character is evil, and the librarians are wonderful.  One of them even fell into the logical fallacy of appealing to authority at one point, talking about how she took classes to curate the collection for the community.  Now, hear me carefully.  I am against banning books.  And I completely disagree with the character in this book.  But if you can buy a book, it isn’t banned.  And, we need to be able to have a conversation about age appropriateness of books.  And yes, there are some books that don’t belong in a library.  It certainly didn’t help that I was reading this right before Banned Books Week started, which always gets on my nerves.  Yes, there is nuance that should be had in this conversation, and this book didn’t even try to offer it.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s move on.  Because that really is a small part of the book.

The plot took me by surprise several times, including how it was set up.  I hadn’t read any description of the book before I started reading, so I didn’t know who the victim was going to be or anything.  I honestly could have seen a few different people being the victim, which is always fun.  There were several more good twists before we reached the climax, when things made perfect sense.

I’ve already talked about how much I like the characters in this series, and that holds true again here.  It was a blast to spend time with them again.  They are their usual charming selves, too.  There’s a large cast, and some stayed more in the background, but that’s how things usually are.  We still at least got to see everyone.  The new characters were good and we got to know them as the book progressed.

And there’s the humor.  I laughed multiple times over the course of the story, usually at the dialogue.  That’s always fun.

I also enjoyed the Christmas setting.  We get plenty of holiday events to enjoy as the book goes along, and it was a fun added touch for this entry in the series.

As usual, the book includes some extras, this time with a Christmas theme.  We get a discussion guide for a Christmas book, a fun ornament craft project, and two recipes.

Overall, I enjoyed my time in Briar Creek for A Merry Little Murder Plot.  Fans of Jenn McKinlay will be glad they picked this up, and if you want a fun Christmas mystery, this is a book you’ll enjoy.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Library Lover’s Mysteries.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.

Movie Review: Deadpool 2

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Some humor, action, growth for Deadpool

Cons: Way too many jokes that were in poor taste and too much gore

The Bottom Line:

Pretty much like first

Which means mostly did not like

So don’t recommend

“What Am I Going to Do?”  “Probably Something Terrible.”

No, I didn’t especially enjoy the first Deadpool movie.  But with all the hype surrounding Deadpool & Wolverine, and the fact that I could watch it free on Disney+, I decided to go ahead and give Deadpool 2 a shot.  Yes, I had the same reactions to this movie I did the first one.

When the story begins, we find Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) out stopping human traffickers.  No, he’s not doing it the usual way of making sure they get arrested.  He’s flat out killing them.  Of course, the problem with that approach (or going after evil people in general) is that sometimes, your work can follow you home.  It happens to happen to Deadpool on his anniversary, with tragic results.

However, a devastated Deadpool can’t die, despite his efforts.  And, through a series of events, he finds himself with a new goal, helping a boy with powers (Julian Dennison) who is dead set on revenge.  Considering an assassin from the future (Josh Brolin) is after the boy, will he be able to do it?

My biggest issue with the first movie is back here in full force – the double entendre.  They are in full force almost the entire movie.  Okay, I’ll admit, I did like a couple of them, but most of them went too far and were too excessive for my tastes.

Which is too bad because I really enjoyed some of the other humor.  The movie once again breaks the fourth wall constantly, and most of those jokes are great.  I loved the meta humor as well.  These jokes definitely made me want to keep watching because I was enjoying that.

On the other hand, there is the excessive violence.  Yes, it is cartoony, but it wasn’t remotely in good taste in my opinion.  The excessive gore was quite disgusting.

But here’s where the movie made a big change from the original.  I actually liked Deadpool more than I did originally.  He wasn’t quite the antihero he was there.  That meant, I could get on board more with rooting for him to succeed in his goal, especially when he starts trying to help the boy in the second half.

And the action scenes themselves were usually pretty good.  Yes, that’s where the worst of the gore came in, but when it wasn’t reveling in that, they were fun.  We did get some obvious special effects during these scenes, but for the most part, I bought what I was seeing.

I will give the actors full credit for making us care about the outcome of the story as they brought the story to life.

You’ll definitely want to watch through the additional scenes during the credits.

At the end of the day, I’m not sorry I watched Deadpool 2.  But I also don’t plan to watch again and I don’t recommend it.

Book Review: Crime and Parchment by Daphne Silver (Rare Books Cozy Mysteries #1)

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters in an interesting, believable mystery

Cons: A bit too much at the beginning set up unrealistic expectations for me

The Bottom Line:

Hunting book treasure

Stumbling on dead body

In this fun debut

Family and Lost Books

I heard a lot of great things about Crime and Parchment when it came out last year.  It went on to win the Agatha for Best First Novel.  Now that I’ve finally made the time to read Daphne Silver’s debut mystery, I can see why.

This is the first book in the Rare Books Cozy Mysteries and introduces us to Juniper Blume, a librarian for the Library of Congress.  She is surprised when she receives a message from her ex-brother-in-law saying that he has information about the covers of the Book of Kells and insisting that Juniper meet him in Rose Mallow, Maryland, the small town where Juniper and her sister spent their summers with their grandmother.  Juniper is skeptical – what would these covers missing from Ireland centuries ago be doing in Maryland?

Still, Juniper can’t resist showing up.  Even if it means a painful reunion with her sister.  The two have grown apart, and there is plenty of blame to go around.  But when Juniper goes to the meeting, she only finds a dead body.  And her ex-brother-in-law is now missing.  What is going on?

This is a lot going on at this book, especially at the beginning.  Since this is the first book in the series, we are meeting all the characters, series regulars and suspects alike, plus being introduced to the main plot and the subplots.  The book does a good job of juggling all of that, and I was never lost.  Maybe it did too good a job.  I felt that the pace slowed down a bit as the book went along, but I think that was because there was so much at the beginning, I began to expect that pace to continue.  When I went back to think about things, the pace was actually pretty consistently steady.  So I think this is more my perception than reality.

I was impressed that the author provided a plausible explanation of how these covers could have been in Maryland instead of Ireland, where they were last seen centuries ago.  This added a bit of a treasure hunt aspect to things, which I really enjoyed.

And the plot was good.  It kept me engaged and guessing as Juniper went along trying to solve it.  I couldn’t wait to see how it was going to be resolved, and everything made sense when she pieced things together.

Juniper and her family have some things to work through, and I appreciated that part of this book as well.  It could have easily crossed the line into soap opera, but it doesn’t, which was nice.  Were things a little too easy?  Possibly, but I still loved where it went.  I’m certainly interested in seeing where things go moving forward for these characters.

Crime and Parchment really is a strong debut.  It’s easy to see why it got all the praise it did.  I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to these characters when the next book comes out.