Murder by Death

First of all, if you like audiobooks at all and think you might be interested in this series, I'd whole-heartedly recommend listening to any of the Mary Russell books narrated by Jenny Sterlin.  She does such a good job that I'd rather listen to these than read them.

I went 3.5 stars for this one because a few things bugged me; some canon-related and some plot related, but overall this was a very enjoyable story taken on its own merits.  Any book that makes me look forward to getting in my car and driving in Melbourne traffic has accomplished something.

My gripes:

Related to canon, I had a hard enough time with Mary and Sherlock getting married because Sherlock was meant to remain unattached and emotionally unavailable so that he might devote his energies to the art of deduction.  But Mary and Sherlock's marriage is, as written, truly a partnership and very little overt emotion is ever expressed, allowing Sherlock to remain truer to the nature Doyle intended.

But this whole past with Adler... no.  I just can't.  I don't like it.  And while it's not overt, in-your-face sentimentalism, King allows Holmes to lose his objectivity and that is just plain wrong.

Unrelated to canon, the title was a stretch and frankly it didn't work.  The last 70% of this book had nothing to do with the first couple of chapters, from whence the title came.  Or if it did, it was obscure enough that it went right over my head during the prolonged listening period.

Finally, the ending.  Really?  We're going to string this out?  The man is no Moriarity and while I found the religious theme of the plot interesting, it certainly wasn't interesting enough to string it or him through another book. 

All in all, good, but definitely not one of the better ones I've read so far.