A Baker Street Wedding

Robertson’s weak sixth Baker Street mystery (after 2016’s The Baker Street Jurors) lacks the humor and original plotting of its predecessors. A prologue set 20 years in the past at a boarding school dance in Bodfyn, Cornwall, focuses on an ungainly teenager, cruelly nicknamed Potty Bobby, who gets a moment of respite from his classmates’ taunts when Laura Penobscott invites him to dance. In the present, the celebrated actress known as Laura Rankin, formerly Laura Penobscott, is preparing to marry Reggie Heath, one of the 221B Baker Street lawyers who are legally required to respond to correspondence sent to Sherlock Holmes at that address. When the ceremony is disrupted by paparazzi sent by Lord Buxton, a wealthy man smitten with Laura, the newlyweds flee to Cornwall, ending up in Bodfyn. The death in an apparent hiking accident of an actress slated to appear in a local production of Macbeth provides both a mystery to solve and a chance for Laura to help out by taking over the victim’s role. Unsurprising reveals display none of the author’s usual ingenuity. (Dec.)