 |
| The Art of Detection |
I spent most of today reading Laurie R. King’s The Art of Detection, the fifth novel in her Kate Martinelli series. I’ve been a fan of her Holmes and Russell series for years and, to a lesser extent, of her Martinelli series. Unlike the historical mysteries of Holmes and Russell, the Martinelli series is set in modern day San Francisco. While they are not the best contemporary mysteries I’ve read, I do enjoy spending time with the character.
Because the reviews and the back of the book mentioned Holmes obliquely, I had high hopes for this novel. I always enjoy when authors link their series together. The highlight of this book definitely was the short story the murder victim that portrays a detective suspiciously like the Holmes of King’s other series. It was so interesting, however, that it threatened to overshadow the mystery at the heart of the rest of the book. Well, not so much threatened in my case. It actually was more interesting to me.
The victim of the novel, is a Holmes nut, to the extent that the lowest two floors of his house are a reproduction of a Victorian gentleman’s house, even down to having gaslights reinstalled in the building. All the suspects are part of a Sherlockian club. There are clues that turn out to be red herrings or not actually clues at all. The Maltese Falcon was a nice touch, as well as the parallels in the short story to what happened to Martinelli’s victim. But when you actually get to the solution, the whodunit, it turns out to be a lot less interesting than it could have been.
I was glad to see the happy ending for Martinelli and her partner Lee at the end, but the end of the mystery felt like a cop out. I read all day, hoping to find out that the criminal behind the murder would be fiendishly clever and that what happened would have been worthy of one of Conan Doyle’s stories. It wasn’t, and what could have been a fantastic mystery storied turned into more of a ho-hum cozy. In the future, I’m probably going to stick to the Holmes/Russell novels. If another Martinelli novel comes out, I’ll just get it from the library if it piques my interest.