The Isolated Séance

Westerson (Courting Dragons) gets a new series off to a dull start with an entry that lacks the originality in the author’s previous historical mysteries. In 1895, 26-year-old Tim Badger, a former member of Sherlock Holmes’s Baker Street Irregulars, is struggling to make a go of it as a private investigator with his partner, only coincidentally named Benjamin Watson, a Black former chemist’s assistant. Their fortunes change when a murder suspect hires them to clear his name. Servant Thomas Brent is suspected of fatally stabbing his employer, Horace Quinn, in Quinn’s London home during a séance. Quinn was attempting to communicate with his deceased business partner, but during the ceremony, the room went dark and someone used the opportunity to stab Quinn to death. Badger and Watson pursue multiple suspects to exonerate their client, but Westerson doesn’t make the detectives more than stereotypes and fails to suspend disbelief: a veteran Scotland Yarder mistakes a throwing knife for a letter opener; it’s never explained why Holmes let Badger, his ostensible protégé, barely scrape by for five years before suddenly offering to set him and Watson up in a fully staffed home of their own. Sherlockians interested in Holmes-adjacent sleuths would be better served by the superior Enola Holmes series. (June)