Currently reading
The Partly Cloudy Patriot
The Age of Edison
Tales of the Alhambra
Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey
The Collected Plays of Theodore Dreiser
Great Stories of the Sea & Ships
The Wisdom of the Lotus Sutra: A Discussion, Vol 1
Advice to Writers: A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom from a Dazzling Array of Literary Lights
Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
A Charm of Powerful Trouble
Thank you very much to Robert Bruce Stewart for a copy of his book in exchange for an honest review.This would be 4.5, but goodreads doesn't allow for that, so I rounded up.
I'll start by saying I don't much care for coming in part way through a series, and could feel that I was missing something throughout. There are cases that are referenced as inside jokes amongst the characters and people or places mentioned that would have a fuller history had the prior books been read first. Obviously, I'll have to go back and start from the beginning.
That having been said, I found this book as a stand-alone, completely delightful. If Emerson and Amelia Peabody had landed in New York instead of England/Egypt and Emerson had written the books, this is the kind of narrative you might experience. I laughed out loud several times. Knowing New York state, some of the train lines and many of the roads, mountains and rivers, the distances traveled in the amounts of time seemed a tad ambitious, but suspension of disbelief is part of every good reader of farce.
From my experience, I recommend you do not start this book unless you have a clear calendar. It was like a really good cake, I ate it until the last piece was gone, and in the morning, when I woke up, I was upset that I had eaten all the cake and there wasn't any left.
