Schedule Update

Today, the third volume of the Black Knight Agency goes into release, which is a good time to look at my release schedule and all the other stories in the pipeline.

 

First the release schedule as far as things are written and ready for editing:

• “Grey Eminence” (Black Knight Agency 3) - May 2021
• “Ignition Rites” (Knight Agency 8) - August 2021
• “Flatmates & Spies Volume 1” - November 2021
• “Theoretical Necromancy Volume 2” - February 2022

 

Next, the list of books which are planned out already and when they will be most likely released:

• “The Fourth Reich” - May 2022
• “The Haunting of Winterthorne Hall” - August 2022
• “The Necromancer’s Notebook” (Isadora Goode 2) - November 2022
• “The Curse of the Devil’s Voice” (Theoretical Necromancy 3) - February 2023
• “Fallen Angel” - May 2023
• “Killer Investigation” - August 2023
• “DI Colin Rook Volume 1” - November 2023
• “Who Is The Phantom?” (The Phantom 1) - February 2024

 

Projects which are still in the outlining phase and thus don’t have a possible release date, as I don’t know when the outline will be finished:

• “The Countess Volume 1”
• “The Eye Volume 2”
• “Isadora Goode Volume 3”
• “John Stanton Volume 3”
• “Spirit Master”
• “The Black Bandit”

 

Projects which are just thought up, but not yet outlined or plotted in any way and might or might not exist one day:

• “Creatures United”
• “The Dragon Lord”
• “The Man in the Shadows”

 

These are all the projects which I am currently juggling in some way or other. I have recently re-organized the lists, trackers, and other aides for my work and hope to get down to writing for a while now. Everything apart from my release list can still change. I might change the order in which I will continue to write the stories which are already outlined, although I’m already deep into “The Fourth Reich”, so at least this one is unlikely to change position.

It should also be noted that “The Curse of the Devil’s Voice” will be a novel, unlike the first two volumes of Gabrielle Munson’s adventures in novella format.

“Fallen Angel” and “DI Colin Rook Volume 1” are collections of interconnected short stories, a new format I have been experimenting with. “The Countess Volume 1”, “Spirit Master”, and “The Black Bandit” will also follow that format, as will “Creatures United” and “The Man in the Shadows”, unless much changes.

 

As you can see, I have a lot of stories to write and to publish, so I’m unlikely to run out of new material in a hurry.

An Interesting Story Structure

After my long run of reviews and ruminations about female masterminds, let’s talk about a new story structure I’ve been trying out last month and will also employ in the future: a story made up of loosely connected short stories.

I first encountered this structure in “A Master of Mysteries” (where the connection was very loose indeed), but found it more compelling in “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings”, where there was raising tension throughout and the stakes were raised between the first and the last chapter (with each chapter being one short story), as the conflict between hero and villainess became more personal and escalated.

 

After finishing that book, I decided I wanted to try out the structure, but I had not written any short stories in a long time (except for the occasional “The Stories That Weren’t” entry). I had assumed short stories needed to be really short, just a scene or two, and that was not a format I wanted to work with. I was looking at things like flash fiction and realized I’d never write any of that, either.

“A Master of Mysteries” and the following books reminded me that I was wrong there. Most of the original Sherlock Holmes canon is in short stories and they are considerably longer than a scene or two. Anything below 20,000 words is, as it were, technically a short story - novellas begin at 20,000 words.

Yet, I hadn’t really written short stories in years - even most of my fan fiction was meant to be novella-sized and came in more chapters than perhaps it should have. Since I started writing again in a more regular fashion in 2013, I have written novellas and, for the first time in my life, novels.

So while the new story structure intrigued me, I wasn’t sure whether I could work with it. I could see a few projects which might profit from it - and there are some which I haven’t properly plotted so far because I wasn’t sure how to shape them into a set of novellas or into a novel -, but I didn’t want to go all out and work on one of them immediately.

My worry was that, if I failed, I would have to re-plot and rewrite a full project again to put it into a shape in which it could be published. Then I thought ‘fan fiction’ and things changed.

 

I have been writing fan fiction off and on for a while again and I had just plotted a piece of fan fiction to write for my own entertainment and as a training exercise. I wanted to write a story composed of several short stories. A fan fiction didn’t need to reach my minimum book length of 60,000 words, since I would not publish it as a book, anyway. I could indulge myself, plot a fan fiction of some sort that way, write it, perhaps put it on Archive Of Our Own in time for others to read. I already had what I needed to keep up my publishing schedule until next February, after all.

I wanted to write a story with that structure. I wanted to write something with a female mastermind. Then I thought ‘why only one mastermind?’ and I thought of my unfinished fan fiction inspired by the “Johannes Cabal” stories. I had two female characters based off Johannes and Horst Cabal on my hard drive. I had the possibility to pit one female mastermind (Johanna Cabal who shares a lot of character traits with her grandfather’s brother) against another mastermind (newcomer Madame Ducreux). I could play the ‘two heroes, one villain mastermind’ game, but with an all-female cast.

Johanna and Alisha were there. I would never publish any story with them as my own, anyway. I could work out a story with them. Pushing them back in time first (they should live in a world roughly analogue to modern day, given that the time of Johannes Cabal has aspects of the 1890s to the 1950s), I then began to plot. I went for five stories to make up the full story, starting it off easy with Johanna and Alisha crossing paths with Madame Ducreux and took it  from there until in the last story things come to a finale which Madame Ducreux does not survive.

 

As I was plotting, I realized that this structure would be ideal for a couple of other stories I have on hold - stories I have started plotting or at least prepared for it already, but haven’t been able to finish as a regular set of novellas or a novel. With the short stories, I can tell things in a more poignant matter (for instance with my ‘Dark Universe’ project “Creatures United” where seven novellas might be too extensive). With the short stories, I can get a better shot at my Zorro-inspired story “The Black Bandit”, since I no longer need to have a coherent plot going from the first to the last scene, but can work with six or seven shorter adventures of the bandit throughout which the tension and the danger escalate. Colin Rook might work better in this format, too, and I can see that my fallen angel Raziel might be ideal for it as well. That’s four projects I have lying around which will finally see the light of day and can be published by me, since they are my originals.

Do I now regret that I wrote a story I will not be publishing professionally first? No, not at all. I had fun with “The Lady of the Dead” and there’s Archive Of Our Own to bring it into the world, if I wish to. I’m writing pretty fast by now and can almost finish a book in a month, if I put my mind to it. Even in April, doing a lot of plotting and relatively little writing, I managed to reach my 50,000-word goal. I can afford to write something ‘for fun’ every now and then. I can afford some writing exercises and some fan fiction or erotica if I want to.

 

There is a lesson to be learned here - which is not to be afraid to try out something new. I never saw myself as a writer of short stories, but now I will definitely add them to my repertoire. There’s also a second lesson for me in this - to do more things for fun. I’ve been very focused on finishing all my plotted stories, especially as I got so close as to have to stop my regular publishing schedule a while ago because I didn’t have the material. I can afford doing something for fun and it makes me more motivated and thus helps me write better stuff for publication, too.

Irene Adler - Mastermind

I have been reading “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” for a while now, starting with last week’s topic “The Sorceress of the Strand” and reaching more modern masterminds by now. When I looked through the index, I was a little surprised to also spot “A Scandal in Bohemia” by Arthur Conan Doyle in there, but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been.

 

Ever since the first Sherlock Holmes movies, Irene Adler has been cast as the only love interest of the Great Detective and also as a femme fatale of sorts. Often, she’s working with or for Professor Moriarty (in “Elementary” she is Moriarty) and usually it’s her job to somehow lure Sherlock Holmes to his fate. More often than not, she has a change of heart at some point, tries to help him, and gets killed for it.

More modern interpretations shift away from Holmes as a focus for Irene Adler’s life, though. The Athena Club by Theodora Goss presents her as the equal of Mycroft Holmes - overseeing spy work for the Austrian Government from her house in Vienna. At that point in time, she’s a widow and lives and works under the name Irene Norton. “Angels of Music” casts her as a member of the first trio of the Phantom of the Opera’s ‘angels’ (the book by Kim Newman is a crossover between “Phantom of the Opera” and “Charlie’s Angels”) who in the end takes the position of the Persian, being approachable and bringing in the cases. In “Moriarty the Patriot”, she fakes her death and joins the ranks of the brothers’ organisation under the new identity of James Bond (no, I am not joking - read the manga).

If you read the only original story she’s in, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, though, you will find it starts with Watson stating that while Irene is ‘the Woman’ to Holmes, there is no romantic angle to it. Irene Adler is ‘the Woman’ - the epitome of idealized womanhood - to Sherlock Holmes because she beat him at his own game. That, given the end of Professor Moriarty himself, definitely elevates her to ‘mastermind’ status. At the end of “The Final Problem”, Moriarty is crushed in a waterfall. At the end of “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Irene Adler leaves London with her husband and the photographs Holmes was hired to steal from her. See the difference?

 

After having been hired by Irene’s ex-beau, the future king of Bohemia, to steal several photographs from Irene which, if sent to the man’s future wife, could cause a catastrophe, Holmes is not shy of applying all of his skills, but especially his skill at disguises. He spies on Irene, who has so far kept the photographs despite several searches of her house and luggage over time, even being present at her wedding (where the coachman he’s playing is actually asked by her future husband to be best man, so the marriage will be legal). He manages to find out where she keeps the pictures through a rather convoluted piece of theatre which involves a paid mob and a smoke grenade. When he comes back the next day to get the photographs, though, the house is empty. Irene has suspected the parson he played to be Sherlock Holmes, dressed up as a boy to follow him (remember, she’s an opera singer, so she has acting training), found out she was right, and left before he could act. A letter arriving later assures the future king that she won’t use the photographs, now being happily married herself, and includes an official photograph of her (those were already a staple for performers at that time). Holmes asks for that photograph as his payment and, according to Watson, keeps it for the rest of his life. Why? Because Irene Adler proved to Sherlock Holmes that a woman can outthink him.

 

Of course, this Irene Adler, the original, is no criminal with her own organisation and her minions and her evil schemes. She’s not the same kind of mastermind as Professor Moriarty (unless it’s in “Elementary”, where ‘Irene Adler’ is merely an identity Jamie Moriarty has adopted to get closer to Sherlock Holmes). Yet, being able to outmanoeuvre Sherlock Holmes is no mean feat and not something most of his other enemies have been able to do. Even Moriarty succumbs at the end, but Irene Adler walks away from Holmes and keeps what he was sent to take from her.

Needless to say that the whole thing was not quite above board from the beginning - the photographs in question were not stolen by Irene, they were taken while she and the future king had an affair. That they could be damaging to him later is something he should have thought of, but he hadn’t.

 

Her modern incarnations show her full range of skills, making her a person who can very well be a mastermind, criminal or otherwise.

Spymaster Irene Norton in “European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman” by Theodora Goss is a woman who knows what she is doing and has a good reason for only employing female spies - they are much less likely to be spotted or caught. She’s also on good terms with both Carmilla von Karnstein and Mina Murray.

‘Erik’s Angel’ Irene Adler is the only one of the first trio who is not influenced by his mesmerism and the only one who returns for the big finale (Trilby being dead and Christine far from Paris). When Erik is missing, presumed dead, and the Persian is definitely dead (his funeral starts the last story), Irene takes over one of the two permanent positions (the other, Erik’s position, is taken by the female detective ‘The Marmoset’ who receives serious burns during the last story). The Phantom Agency will continue to work, will continue to employ a vast range of different women who have different skills (among them are, as an example, Lady Snowblood, Eliza Doolittle, and Sophie Katreides - another woman who challenged Sherlock Holmes), and will have Irene Adler as its face.

Even Jamie Moriarty aka. Irene Adler proves herself very dangerous - in the end, she is not tricked or defeated by Sherlock Holmes, but by Joan Watson (the officially gender-switched character in the series).

 

Irene Adler deserves more than the role of love interest and femme fatale. She deserves to be more than just a minion of Professor Moriarty. After all, she took on Sherlock Holmes and won - the professor paid for a similar challenge with his life. If you have the chance to, look into the original and read the story she is in, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, instead of watching her in movies which regularly miscast her. Or give her more modern interpretations a look.

Review: The Sorceress of the Strand

Last week, I published a review about “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings”, a book by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace. I loved it for the villainess and for the structure. “The Sorceress of the Strand” is, in many aspects, very much like this book - was also written by the same author team -, but somehow was a little more lacking. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun to read - it was a highly enjoyable read -, but it didn’t quite catch me the way Brotherhood did.

 

For some reason, Mme. Koluchy is more of an original to me than Madame Sara. Perhaps I thought so because I read her story first and then found Madame Sara to be too similar to her. Both villainesses are similar in character - female masterminds with a focus on selling beauty products to inveigle themselves in society. Yet, when all is said and done, Mme. Koluchy is more of a threat, has a more personal connection to the hero of the piece, and has the better send-off as well.

This is spoiler territory for everyone who hasn’t read the stories, so be careful!

When Mme. Koluchy’s name in society has been destroyed and she’s hunted from pillar to post after killing the hero’s friend and co-hero, she returns back home and faces off against the police and the hero in her basement. When one of the policemen jumps into her laboratory to grab her, she triggers a trap which immediately incinerates her and burns down the laboratory - an impressive send-off, no doubt. Madame Sara, on the other hand, is killed by a co-conspirator’s Siberian wolf after she has decided to change sides in the conflict when offered a worthy price. Not much of an impressive end, is it?

End of spoiler territory.

It feels, at least to me, as if Mme. Koluchy is the original and at some point Madame Sara was created as a copy for more stories. The stories are still good and some of Madame Sara’s tricks are quite impressive and intriguing, but they don’t quite carry the same strength for me.

 

In general, Mme. Koluchy gives the impression of being more dangerous and harder to defeat - she is the head of a criminal organisation (the Brotherhood of the Seven Kings the book is named for) and has her minions everywhere. It seems logical for her to have her minions situated well before she moves from Naples to London and for her to rely on whatever powers she has at her disposal whenever she sees fit. Madame Sara does have helpers and she is behind a large amount of crime as well, but that ‘based in a long history of a powerful organisation’ impression her colleague gives off is missing from her.

Mme. Koluchy is personally connected to the hero of the tale - years ago, in Naples, he fell for her and became a member of the Brotherhood. It was only when he was drawn into crime that he made a cut and fled back to London. The hero of “The Sorceress of the Strand” merely has connections to the victims of Madame Sara’s crimes - none are as close as relatives, either-, he has no prior history with her, which makes his focus on defeating her much less reasonable. Apart from the righteousness of a pulp hero, there’s not much there - it’s neither his job nor some kind of personal mission. There’s also no personal attack on him, whereas the hero of Brotherhood almost gets executed in a very inventive and cruel way - after all, he has deserted the Brotherhood and inconvenienced the leader before that happens.

 

So, does that mean that I don’t like “The Sorceress of the Strand”?

No, that’s not the case. I did enjoy the book, I did enjoy Madame Sara’s methods, and I was definitely entertained by all of it. I was missing the rising threat level there (very much like the third cooperation of the authors, “A Master of Mysteries”, Sorceress has no rising stakes), since there’s no real change in relationship between Madame Sara and the hero - no suggestions that she thinks about moving against him to stop him from more interventions. As a story with a female criminal mastermind committing interesting crimes, “The Sorceress of the Strand” is a great example which has certainly earned being in “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” (it’s the only e-book source for the book and also includes “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings” and more great stories of female masterminds). In direct comparison with “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings”, it is lacking in tension.

I would probably have loved the book more had I not read it right after Brotherhood. Madame Sara is no bad character, the stories are well-written, the methods are interesting, yet grounded in science and not just thought up for pulp-adventure reasons. As with the other books of the author team I have reviewed, the writing is fluent and easy to read. The stories have a good length for a read at the pool or on the couch or even, if you retire early, in bed. The tension within each story is well-created - it’s only the rising stakes which are missing. As a collection of short stories with the same main characters (heroes and villainess), the book is excellent and a lot of fun.

I will revisit it at some point, I’m sure, but then I won’t read “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings” beforehand. I will simply read this book, enjoy the stories in it, be gleeful about those strange methods of killing (such as a tooth filling that will dissolve and release poison within a month), and have a good time with it. I won’t compare it to another book by the same authors and spoil my own fun.

Until then, there’s ten more female masterminds in “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” which also contains “The Sorceress of the Strand” which I can amuse myself with, including Mrs. A.J. Raffles and Irene Adler (more about her soon), so I am well-entertained in that aspect.

 

“The Sorceress of the Strand” by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace is a great book to read, either in one go or a story at a time. I enjoyed myself very much with it, even if I expected something different. It’s another example of a good female mastermind going up against two male heroes and it’s filled with interesting criminal ventures which said heroes are set to stop. The writing is fluid and the stories are well-composed. If you enjoy late Victorian settings and crime stories, “The Sorceress of the Strand” will certainly deliver for you - even with illustrations.

Review: The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings

This it is, the second review of a book written by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace. This time, though, be prepared to meet the first female criminal mastermind they created together: the charming, beautiful, yet ruthless Mme. Koluchy.

 

“The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings” is, at the time of the story, run by a queen. Norman Hold, the first-person narrator of the tale met the mysterious and beautiful Katherine in his youth in Italy and fell under her spell. She introduced him to the organisation referred to as the Brotherhood of the Seven Kings and he became a member. It was only when he was part of a criminal deed that he realized what he’d gotten himself into, fled Italy, and returned to his home in England.

Years have passed, Hold has settled into his life and become a gentleman scientist, living off his fortune and doing his scientific research. Little does he know the Brotherhood will soon enter his life again. Then, at a friend’s party, he meets the woman who has been the talk of London, the Italian lady-doctor whose medicine and treatments can even cure those who the regular doctors have given up on. The woman who may demand high fines from her wealthy patients also treats the poor for free. A true angel of mercy - as beautiful and well-educated as she is kind and caring. The wonderful Mme. Koluchy. It takes him a moment to recognize her, but that recognition sends a shiver down his spine: Mme. Koluchy is none other than the mysterious Italian woman Katherine, the queen of the Brotherhood of the Seven Kings. She has recognized him, too, but pretends not to.

Hold acts immediately, fearing that Mme. Koluchy has come to conquer England after having full control over Naples and other areas of Italy already. She is the head of a large and dangerous organisation, after all. So he seeks out a friend who is a lawyer and tries to find out how to act against her.

Over the course of ten stories, Hold and his friend clash with Mme. Koluchy and her many agents. Some serve her willingly, as Hold once did, while others are held under her control through blackmail or other threats. More than once, she is the one who triumphs in the end, even if Hold and his friend might be able to soften the hit, they are not able to prevent it.

It takes a while before Mme. Koluchy decides to take steps against him and his friend, but Hold only escapes a gruesome execution by luck and loses his best friend to the ruthless mastermind. In the end, Mme. Koluchy even is in control of what happens to her - she is not to be judged by mere humans.

 

As “A Master of Mysteries”, which I reviewed already, the book is an easy read despite its age. The writing is smooth and flows well, the wording is not too old-fashioned. If you can read and enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories, you won’t find “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings” much of a bother in that department, either.

This time, unlike in the last book I mentioned, there is a definite rise in tension. While at the beginning it’s more about helping friends and acquaintances and only a little bit about crossing paths with Mme. Koluchy, she begins to take more of an interest after a while, attacking Hold and his friend directly. Stakes and tension rise with that.

The modern e-book version of this book has an index - which makes it slightly better than “A Master of Mysteries” - and lists all ten chapters one after another. Each chapter is a complete story and only loosely connected with the others. Things happen, but few of them have an overall influence above raising the overall tension. In most cases, Hold and his friend survive. In the beginning, it’s more likely for Mme. Koluchy to win whereas later on Hold wins more often, even though not always fully. It’s not over until the very end of the very last chapter, though - unlike a certain professor of mathematics, Mme. Koluchy does not die off-screen.

 

One thing which fascinated me about the book was that this is one of the first books with a female mastermind as its villain and it does a much better job at portraying its villain than a lot of modern stories which try for a similar character.

One point the authors make about Mme. Koluchy is that she is so well-integrated in high society because of her positive qualities. She is attractive (and attractive people run a smaller risk of being taken for evil), well-versed in social matters, an excellent singer, a lady-doctor who can and will cure almost all illnesses, and she seems caring and gentle. People are fascinated by her, even Hold was under her spell until that day on which he committed a crime for her.

She is in the middle of society, holds a house in one of the most wealthy neighbourhoods, gains entrance into the houses of the rich and influential by her reputation and by her skills as a doctor. Yet, all the time she is also the queen of the Brotherhood, the one in control of it. She is the one who moves her pawns across the playing field, ruthlessly sacrificing them when it suits her needs. They can be caught or killed - nothing will come back to haunt her, she’s above suspicion.

Her attractiveness is not along the lines of the femme fatale - she doesn’t seduce in a sexual way, she draws people in with her charms. Men and women find themselves fascinated by her and learn only too late they’re now under her control and will have to do as they are told. Fascination turns to fear as Mme. Koluchy stays in control.

 

“The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings” by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace is a great read and a very interesting version of the mastermind trope. The book makes for a good read and can still, despite being more interconnected than “A Master of Mysteries”, be read slowly, a chapter at a time. It’s a good one for everyone who wants some action in their lives. Be aware that some methods Mme. Koluchy uses are not for the faint of heart - neither is her end. If you don’t worry too much about that, I can definitely recommend it. Find this one and “The Sorceress of the Strand” in the collection “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” or as a standalone book.

Review: A Master of Mysteries

I listened to the audio-book version of “Monster, She Wrote” (review for the book here) recently and for L.T. Meade, one of the authors (actually an author team), a couple of books were on the reading list. Among them were “A Master of Mysteries” (the subject of this review), “The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings”, and “The Sorceress of the Strand”. I will review those two books as well (and the collection “Moriarty’s Rivals - 12 Female Masterminds” which includes the latter two books), but this is my review of the first book by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace I’ve read. It’s the book which drew me in and made me read the others as well.

 

“A Master of Mysteries” contains six stories, each a good length for a short story, about Dr. John Bell. Dr. Bell is a man of science investigating supernatural occurrences, mostly by invitation. Each of the six stories represents one case, each is independent of the ones before or afterwards, so they can theoretically be read in any order.

The first thing I noticed was that the writing was very good. Despite the stories being quite old, the writing is fluid and pulls you along. Tension is built nicely and kept throughout the chapters (which usually have a reading time between about 15 and about 20 minutes for a fast reader like me). The first-person viewpoint of Bell himself allows for a very close narration - Bell is not someone else’s Watson, he is an investigator who works alone. Even if he doesn’t always communicate his suspicions, the details he unveils make it easy enough for the audience to see the twist coming and find out what happened, which is always good. A crime story - and nothing else are the stories in “A Master of Mysteries” - should always play fair with the reader.

 

While Dr. Bell does not drive a mini bus (the stories are set in the last decade of the 1800s) and doesn’t own an easy-to-frighten Great Dane, any fan of “Scooby Doo” will soon recognize the pattern: the cases always look like there is a supernatural element involved, but in the end, it’s ingenious devices or suchlike which were used to make people believe in ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties instead. There is, of course, no ‘…and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!’, but more than one of the culprits Bell unmasks might at least be thinking along those lines (without the ‘meddling kids’ part, as Bell is a grown man).

More than once, Bell gets into a lot of trouble himself. Whether while he’s pretending to be an insistent artist who absolutely won’t go another mile, but wants to sleep in that old inn or whether he’s making haste through the night to stop a murder from happening, action is guaranteed in the stories.

There is no classic ‘you might have wondered why I’ve asked you all here’ in the stories, instead Bell merely explains things to those who have called him in to help. He also does his best to make sure that the culprits are caught, even though he’s often not the one to catch them - the police usually is. His job is not to catch the culprit, but to show how the deed was done, how the supernatural was created. That job he does wonderfully.

Some murder methods used in the stories are highly inventive and rather gruesome - which seems twice as interesting, given L.T. Meade was, at her time, also widely known as a writer of stories for young girls (even today, most matches for the name on Amazon will lead you to her children’s books, not this one or the other two mentioned above). Clearly, the author had more to give to the world than just wholesome books for young ladies.

 

If there’s something I don’t like about the edition I have (an e-book version), it’s that there is no index of any kind - neither in the beginning of the book, nor in digital form. Since all six stories are independent from each other and can be read in any order, it would be nice to get to pick them directly from the ‘go to…’ feature. That is a minor problem, though, since it’s still possible to search them in the book and reading them all again is not a hardship.

 

I’ve had a lot of fun with “A Master of Mysteries” and I did thoroughly enjoy my read. As a matter of fact, the book kept me very interested, so I read it in less than a day. I could also imagine it as a good one for your holidays - a read at the pool or the beach or, if you prefer more active vacations, a chapter in the evening to come to a rest after a long and eventful day.

The chapters are a good size, not too long, but also not too short. It’s something to read in bed before sleeping, on the couch during bad weather or on the terrace or balcony in a good one. Yes, it’s an old book, set in old times, focused more on men than on women. Yet, the women who turn up aren’t treated badly or pushed aside as unimportant. They are helpful, sometimes even essential to the survival of the main character or others.

The old pictures integrated with this book (and the other two) are charming and look very good even on a black-and-white kindle. The missing index is a small inconvenience. The reading experience is not hindered by it - I never felt like I needed to go to the next story because the one I was reading was boring me. Would the experience of reading the book be a tad better with a working index? Yes, it would be. Does the missing index make a big difference? No, it does not.

 

As I wrote above, this book drew me in and made me pick up the other two books as well. I’m always up for mysteries - especially mysteries with a horror touch - and “A Master of Mysteries” by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace certainly delivered for me. The e-book is not that expensive and I can certainly suggest it to everyone who likes to read mysteries and story from the late Victorian era. Be prepared for gruesome and inventive murders - but then, if you like mysteries, you probably are, anyway.