This series of books is about the first few crimes in which the great detective Sherlock Holmes solved. This book starts off as Sherlock's brother coming back to see him along with Amyus Crowe from America. Soon after soon investigating Sherlock's Holmes finds out that a assassin, apparently dead is in Surrey and once again planning something mad. After visiting his house Sherlock nearly dies only to be saved by his friend Matty. Then Matty gets kidnapped leaving Sherlock's Holmes, Crowe and his daughter Virginia to find him. Nearly being killed a number of times, they find Matty but cannot save him until he is on a train to Virginia, the American state. Figuring out there evil plan to take over Canada they try to stop them. After nearly dieing a number of times and a numerous number of disguises they finally foil there plan!!
Personally, I found this book exciting and gripping, capturing you at every page. At fist, I found the book a little bit boring but do not be fooled. Once the character introduction is over the proper tale really begin. In each page we feel a different emotion for each character drawing us more into the book. However to improve it could maybe us a bit more emotion feelings/thoughts as we experience all the emotion from the actions of the characters.
Personally, my most interesting quote is ' You think you so clever, yes'. I like this quote as it gives a slight sense of humor to the book as whenever Sherlock is caught trespassing or investigating they always say to him ' You think you're so clever' and that he will never be able to stop there plan from becoming reality. I find this quote good as this whole book and the series is all about how people don't think that a child can solve crimes like this, yet it always turns out that he can.
My favourite character in this book is defiantly Duke Balthassar as even though he is the villain and we only see in the last few chapters in this book, he is an entertaining character. He was full of shocks and surprises after reveling he had a mask on to hide the fact that there were hundreds of leeches sucking out his blood. It sounds disgusting but as he explains more about them, about how he keeps them to suck out the family illness which has been running for generations it has a humorous effect on me and many other readers. Also the pets he keeps.
I would give this book ***** 5 stars as it was funny, exciting and kept me interested the whole way through.
