2.5/5 Stars
Details of the Book
Paperback ARC,
245 pages
Published by
Simon and Schuster,
An imprint of
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers
Synopsis:
In modern-day
London, two brilliant high school students, one Sherlock Holmes and a Miss
James "Mori" Moriarty, meet. A murder will bring them together. The
truth very well might drive them apart.
Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more.
FACT: Someone has been murdered in London's Regent's Park. The police have no leads.
FACT: Miss James "Mori" Moriarty and Sherlock "Lock" Holmes should be hitting the books on a school night. Instead, they are out crashing a crime scene.
FACT: Lock has challenged Mori to solve the case before he does. Challenge accepted.
FACT: Despite agreeing to Lock's one rule—they must share every clue with each other--Mori is keeping secrets.
OBSERVATION: Sometimes you can't trust the people closest to you with matters of the heart. And after this case, Mori may never trust Lock again.
Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more.
FACT: Someone has been murdered in London's Regent's Park. The police have no leads.
FACT: Miss James "Mori" Moriarty and Sherlock "Lock" Holmes should be hitting the books on a school night. Instead, they are out crashing a crime scene.
FACT: Lock has challenged Mori to solve the case before he does. Challenge accepted.
FACT: Despite agreeing to Lock's one rule—they must share every clue with each other--Mori is keeping secrets.
OBSERVATION: Sometimes you can't trust the people closest to you with matters of the heart. And after this case, Mori may never trust Lock again.
Lock and Mori is a Sherlock Holmes re-telling that re-imagines the story of Moriarty and Sherlock as two high school students. When a string of serial homicides goes unsolved, Lock challenges Mori to see which one of them can discover the identity of the murderer first—though neither of them knows how much solving this mystery will affect their lives.
My
favorite part of this book was definitely reading from Mori’s perspective. She is an interesting
main character who is not your typical young-adult heroine. Even though she doesn't have a likeable personality, her back-story makes her both sympathetic and intriguing. Other than that, I found this re-telling to be lacking in many aspects, such as the relationships between the characters (both friendly and romantic), inconsistent pacing, and even the mystery itself. The romance was forced and sudden, and it developed way too quickly. Although the writing was pretty good and it kept me
guessing about who the culprit was for around the first half of the book, the author revealed who the killer was too far
from the end. From that point on, it was hard to take the "mystery" seriously
because Mori kept the big revelation to herself and lied about it for no apparent reason. Overall, I
wouldn’t recommend this book, although if you're a big fan of anything related to Sherlock Holmes, you might enjoy this.
Strengths/Likes:
1) The fact that this book is written from Moriarty's perspective made it much more enjoyable for me. Mori isn't a likable character, and is more of a villain than a hero. Even so, she has a back-story that lets you understand and feel sympathy for her.
2) The author has a nice writing style, and is good at keeping the readers guessing.
Weaknesses/Dislikes:
1) The romance comes out of nowhere, and develops way too quickly to take seriously. Lock and Mori have a relationship based on insta-love, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.
2) While the
original mystery is interesting, Moriarty discovers who the killer is around halfway through the story. After that, things start to move much slower and the book drags on because Mori refuses to tell anyone what she knows. From that point, it's all just pointless, illogical drama.
3) Both Lock and Mori act moody and unreasonable—especially for people who are supposed to be "geniuses". For example, although Lock does everything in his power to help Mori with her family drama, she still lies to him for absolutely no reason. Why? Because . . . plot.
Favorite
Quotes/Moments:
1) “I suspected she
used Headmaster’s favorite kind of persuasion—the monetary kind.”
2) “My expression
dared him to comment further. He did not. He was perhaps wiser than first
impressions would indicate.”
3) “Honestly,” I
said, pulling the mask from my face again. “This is all extremely unnecessary,
and"—his hand started
coming toward the mask—“I swear to you,
if you mash this plastic monster back onto my face one more time, I will shove
it down your throat.”
He
stopped short, then gave into a half grin. “Well, you’ll be feeling better
then.”
If you want to write a Sherlock Holmes retelling, you have to at the very least do lots of research and write intelligent characters. I don't think I'll be picking this one up.
ReplyDeleteI never read the original Sherlock Holmes books, but I definitely agree that the author that attempts a re-telling needs to do a lot of research. From what I know of Sherlock, this didn't match up for me.
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