A Study in Charlotte Author Brittany Cavallaro on What to Read for Your Sherlock Fix
Season four of the BBC’s Sherlock is nigh! Because we’ll all be bingeing it the instant it becomes available this Sunday, Brittany Cavallaro—author of A Study in Charlotte, an addictive, tightly plotted, and all-around delightful Sherlock update that finds the offspring of the eccentric detective and his right-hand man, Watson, teaming up to solve crimes at a modern-day boarding school—is here to recommend four books to fill your Sherlockian needs once season four has been watched and the long wait for season five begins. And may we add a fifth suggestion? After you’ve devoured A Study in Charlotte, you’ll want to pre-order sequel The Last of August, out this February!
We all come to Sherlock Holmes for different things—the banter or the crime-solving, the Holmes and Watson friendship in all its love-hate glory. Season four of Sherlock is almost upon us, but for those of us who can’t wait another day, I’ve made a list of books to tide you over until New Years’ Day, and to fill the void once you’ve finished the season.
Lock and Mori, by Heather Petty
I’m a big fan of Sherlock Holmes retellings (surprise!), but I haven’t let myself read the Lock and Mori novels just yet, not until I’ve finished writing the Charlotte Holmes trilogy. That said, it looks like so much fun: a boy Sherlock, a girl Moriarty running circles around him, family secrets and murder in London. I am always here for a girl genius.
Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, by Stephanie Tromly
Come for the snark and exasperated banter, stay for the madcap crime-solving and the too-smart-for-his-own-good Digby, this series’s Sherlock Holmes, and his will-they, won’t-they relationship with our narrator Zoe Webster.
Jackaby, by William Ritter
One part Doctor Who to one part Holmes, this novel and its sequels follow supernatural investigator R.F. Jackaby and his intrepid assistant Abigail Rook, solving crimes in an alternate history 19th-century New England. Atmospheric and quippy and a whole lot of fun.
Last Seen Leaving, by Caleb Roehrig
And sometimes you don’t need a Watson at all, if the mystery is this complex and the
characterization this good. Flynn’s girlfriend, January, is missing, and nobody’s telling the truth about what they know. Maybe not even Flynn. A coming out story, a novel about friendship, and a mystery novel focused on expectations and escape.