“A man’s home should be his castle, but this one had been occupied by a superior force.”
The Moriartys have only been married a few months, and already relations are strained. While on the honeymoon, the professor discovered that his mathematical skills gave him quite a talent for gambling. The only problem is, now that their finances are improved, Angelina has decided to become the consummate society hostess by redecorating their large house. With the invasion of the decorators and the drapers and with his opinion constantly demanded on all the various wallpapers, Moriarty can’t get a moment of quiet. He needs an occupation, something to keep out from under Angelina’s fretful feet, but who would hire a man as notorious as he?
Enter Sherlock Holmes. He has a new case, one in which wealthy women have been mysteriously kicking the bucket right after attending a month-long visit to a salubrious sanatorium. The plan is to infiltrate the sanatorium to discover what dark deeds lie behind its walls. But although Holmes has a penchant for disguises, he can hardly dress up as a convincingly female patient. The pretentious detective convinces Angelina to do just that, but when matters go desperately awry, it turns out that Moriarty might have just found an occupation after all…saving his wife from a grisly fate!
This book was even better than the first one in the series. Moriarty and Angelina have new struggles to contend with as they decide how to relate with each other in their new state of domestic hostility. We see a good deal more of the inimitable Holmes, and while he’s not exactly chummy with Moriarty, the two have arranged a prickly truce. The page-turning plot had just the right amount of suspense and danger. I’m hooked on this series now and can’t wait to start the next one!
When they’d cut the distance in half, Holmes stopped. “I say, Moriarty. About that stumble back there with the dress. And letting ourselves be chloroformed, and the minor fact that we seem to have panicked and forgotten to search —”
Moriarty cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Let us never speak of it again, not any of it. Not to Angelina. Not even to Watson.”
Holmes snorted. “Especially not Watson.”
Rosanne E. Lortz 