Mycroft Holmes

Mycroft Holmes
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!

Fresh out of Cambridge University, the young Mycroft Holmes is already making a name​ ​for himself in government, working for the Secretary of State for War. Yet this most British of civil servants has strong ties to the faraway island of Trinidad, the birthplace of his best friend, Cyrus Douglas, a man of African descent, and where his fiancée Georgiana Sutton was raised.

Mycroft’s comfortable existence is overturned when Douglas receives troubling reports​ from home. There are rumors of mysterious disappearances, strange footprints in the sand, and spirits enticing children to their deaths, their bodies found drained of blood. Upon hearing the news, Georgiana abruptly departs for Trinidad. Near panic, Mycroft convinces Douglas that they should follow her, drawing the two men into a web of dark secrets that grows more treacherous with each step they take...

I'm a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fangirl, it has to be said. So how could I not take the opportunity to read the story of his older brother Mycroft? Mycroft has always intrigued me and this book goes some way to show you how he became the person he is when we meet him in Sherlock Holmes books. 

This story is full of adventure and danger, with a nice mystery that's fun to try and put the pieces together before the big reveal. The book also had a nice amount of humour to it, to have you chuckling once or twice. I found our two protagonists to be likeable and fun to read about, I enjoyed the relationship between the two and I came to like their characters more and more as I read, rooting for them and hoping for them to come out on top. Even though it is fairly obvious they would succeed...what with Mycroft being in the Sherlock books and so on...but still! 

I was completely fascinated by the legendary Douen and Lougarou, I really wanted to know more about the stories surrounding them and everything, and it's something I'll be looking in to myself. I'm such a sucker for myths and legends to be honest.

Much like the characters, the book itself and the plot and so on, are all very well written. I found it easy to read the book and get lost in it. I liked the pace of the book and the prose. The book has you engaged from start to finish, riveted, trying to put pieces together, but failing as something surprises you. The historic detail was spot on, and perfectly done. There are some particularly well done scenes between Mycroft and Sherlock that had me internally squealing, not to mention the very end of the book! 

All in all it was an enjoyable read and I wouldn't be opposed to it being turned in to a series, because why not? Mycroft is usually in the background and it's great to get to know him, it makes him seem less...aloof? Whether reading or watching something Sherlock, I always feel as if he's kind of aloof or separate, but this book kind of solidified him in my mind as a real person/character, which doesn't make sense but yeah.