Book Review: The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird ****

The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first of the titular “three locks” in this book appears in the form of a mysterious box sent to Dr. John Watson by an aunt of whom he had previously been unaware. It had been his mother's and she had requested that it be given to him on his 21st birthday, now years in the past. The trick lock on the box, however, renders its secret inaccessible for the present. Secondly, his colleague and friend Sherlock Holmes is approached by the wife of an Italian escape artist, The Great Borelli, who begs him to discover the truth behind a feud between her husband and another magician. Borelli comes close to death that same night when Holmes and Watson attend his show and one of his acts goes horribly wrong.

Finally, Peregrine Buttons, a young Catholic deacon, asks Holmes to discover the whereabouts of a missing young woman, the strong-willed Odilie (Dillie) Wyndham, who has disappeared from her father’s home in Cambridge. The “lock” in this case is the Jesus Lock on the River Cam, which will play a crucial part in the story later on.

How are these mysteries connected, if indeed they are? Holmes skillfully juggles the two cases, in both of which lives are at stake and in both of which, if loss of life can be considered failure, he fails despite his best efforts, but, as in many of the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he succeeds to the extent that some justice is achieved. The final mystery, that of the locked box, is also solved at the end, giving us some knowledge of events in Watson’s past and how they have affected his subsequent life.

The Three Locks is the fourth in a series of Sherlock Holmes pastiches by Ms. MacBird, but the first I have read. However, I did not feel lost or confused in any way, which may be a benefit of reading a book, even out of order, that is set in a much larger fictional world. At first, I didn’t care for the somewhat testy - even rude - way in which the relationship between Holmes and Watson is presented, although there is some comedy in it, but eventually I felt that the author hit her stride. I will certainly seek out the other books in the series in the hope that they are as enjoyable as this one was.

I received a copy of The Three Locks for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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