The Digital Renaissance: Review: The Curse of Cleopatra's Needle: A Sherlock and Lucy Short Story

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Review: The Curse of Cleopatra's Needle: A Sherlock and Lucy Short Story

The Curse of Cleopatra's Needle: A Sherlock and Lucy Short Story by Anna Elliott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Performance: ****

Story: ***

Another quick addition to the Lucy James Mysteries (either book 22 or 8.5 depending on who is counting) … and as a whole I recommend the series. They don’t need to be read in any order; however, I started with Remember, Remember, then the Last Moriarty and worked well for me. Although the series introduces Lucy as a previously unknown love child of Holmes, eventually we get a much larger cast of characters all connected to Sherlock in some fashion (such as Lucy’s Husband Jack and his little sister Becky) … giving Sherlock a relatively minor role in most of the short stories.

This mystery revolves around a murder of a lady by her husband … but Holmes is not convinced. With a does of international intrigue tied into a subversive group linked to Egypt (hence the reference to Cleopatra). Overall it was a fun mystery with a few twists to keep it interesting … solving the murder while leaving a few loose ends for later stories (potentially). The excellent narration pushes this review to 4*.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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My Ratings Explained ...

[ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
[ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
[ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
[ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
[ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.