Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Elementary, She Read (Sherlock Holmes Bookshop, Bk 1)

Elementary, She Read (Sherlock Holmes Bookshop, Bk 1)
booksinvt avatar reviewed on + 465 more book reviews


Elementary, She Read is the first installment in the A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery series featuring Gemma Doyle, an English transplant who is the co-owner of Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium located in the cozy small town of West London on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Gemma co-owns the Bookshop with her Great Uncle Arthur, an avid Sherlock Holmes collector and together they own a share of Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room the adjacent tea and pastry shop run by Gemma's best friend, Jayne Wilson.

Shortly after a tourist group of shopping ladies leaves the store Gemma begins to straighten the shelves and discovers what she thinks may be a rare edition of Beeton's Christmas Annual, published in 1887 and featuring Holmes first story. Gemma has an uncanny ability to remember details and she recalls a small woman who'd come in to the store holding a white shopping bag. Finding the bag in the trash, she also uncovers a postcard from a nearby hotel. Determined to locate the woman and find out why she'd left the magazine in her shop, Gemma sets out with Jayne and soon discovers the woman dead in her hotel room.

Under suspicion for the woman's murder, Gemma has no choice but to investigate on her own. Helped by ex boyfriend turned Detective, Ryan Ashburton and hindered by his partner Detective Louise Estrada, Gemma soon discovers a tangled web surrounding the magazine.

A fast paced storyline with a surprise ending and an interesting cast of characters.