Review by Booklist Review
This is the fifth installment in the entertaining saga of brothers Reggie and Nigel Heath, London lawyers operating out of 221B Baker Street. One of their main responsibilities is handling the mail sent to Sherlock Holmes. This time, as Nigel runs the shop alone, a jury summons arrives. Nigel is chosen as an alternate on a grisly murder case, but readers will likely find the details less interesting than the tall, thin fellow, also an alternate, who keeps interrupting the procedure with bizarre questions and observations. Where was the cleaning staff? Are there reasons to be skeptical of one witness, who recently had a full body wax? When the jurors begin dying mysteriously, it's this man, who says his name is Siger formerly Sigerson, a Holmes alias who confronts the killer ahead of the police. Robertson writes in a fluid style edged with irony, which keeps us reading while we cheer Nigel's efforts to find out just whom this Siger is. In the last pages we learn much but want still more. Will Siger be back for book six?--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Agatha Christie fans will revel in Robertson's fifth novel featuring London solicitor Nigel Heath (after 2014's Moriarty Returns a Letter). Two jury summonses arrive at 221B Baker Street, which is the address of Nigel's law firm, Baker Street Law Chambers: one for Sherlock Holmes, the other for Nigel. The attorney discards the one for Holmes by making it into a paper airplane and throwing it out the window. To his dismay, the claim on his own time isn't dispensed with that easily, and he ends up as an alternate on the highest-profile case of the day. Superstar cricketer Liam McSweeney, on whose skills rest Britain's hopes for an international championship, has been charged with bludgeoning his wife to death with his cricket bat. Nigel's own experience in the courtroom enables him to second-guess both the prosecution and the defense, and the proceedings are made livelier by an eccentric juror with a penchant for quoting Conan Doyle. This is Robertson's best work yet, a classic fair play whodunit leavened with humor. Agent: Kirby Kim, William Morris Endeavor. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Reggie and Nigel Heath's law offices are located at 221B Baker Street, the famous address of Sherlock Holmes. When they first moved in, their lease stipulated all mail addressed to Holmes would be answered, a task that fell to Nigel. Apparently, the Crown Court Jury Selection believes Holmes exists because they issue the famous detective a jury summons that Nigel discards. When Nigel receives a summons of his own, he winds up in the pool of prospective jurors for a high-profile case in which an English cricket champion is accused of murdering his wife with his cricket bat. As apparently random accidents befall individual jurists, Nigel wonders if anyone will survive to render a verdict. VERDICT Featuring plenty of inside Sherlockian wit and cross-references, this fifth entry (after Moriarty Returns a Letter) will be enjoyed by devotees of Arthur Conan Doyle's illustrious sleuth who will relish the contemporary take. A solid choice for those who appreciate the humor of Paul Levine's "Jake Lassiter" series. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
It was only a matter of time, and now it's happened at last: Sherlock Holmes gets called to jury duty. The person who answers the summons is not, of course, the fictional Holmes, of whom solicitor Nigel Heath has already had more than his fill, presiding as he does (with his absent brother, Reggie) over the Baker Street Law Chambers (Moriarty Returns a Letter, 2014, etc.). When Her Majesty's Crown Court, following the thousands of other naifs who've written to Holmes at 221B Baker St. over the years under the impression that he's a real person, sends him a summons to jury duty, Nigel tosses it out the window. And that would be that, if only the same mail delivery didn't bring Nigel's own summons and if, upon his selection as an alternate juror in the third murder trial of celebrated cricket star Liam McSweeney for killing his wife, he didn't perceive in Sigera fellow alternate who constantly quotes the Sacred Writings, makes Sherlock-ian inferences about the other jurors, and interrupts the trial by asking pointed questionsthe likely finder of the summons he discarded. Both Nigel and Siger ("the longer form is Sigerson, but that's been overused," the mysterious alternate informs him, doubtless aware of its Holmes-ian connections) will have their hands full, since someone seems intent on promoting at least some of the five alternates to full participation by sidelining the jurors who have been duly impaneled. When Nigel's own question of a witness leads the entire jury, along with the judge, the bailiff, and the court steward, on an outing to McSweeney's estate on an island off the Devon coast, savvy readers will pick up the scent of another classic mystery, and they'll be rewarded by still another stream of in-jokes and sly cross-references. Robertson, who seems to command an unlimited stream of clever ideas for recycling the Holmes legend without resuscitating the great man, outdoes himself in the most effervescent of his five Baker Street cocktails to date. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
