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Elementary, She Read: A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery    by Vicki Delany Amazon.com order for
Elementary, She Read
by Vicki Delany
Order:  USA  Can
Crooked Lane, 2017 (2017)
Hardcover, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Lyn Seippel

British divorcee Gemma Doyle is offered an investment she can't refuse when her eccentric great-uncle invites her to the US to run his bookstore in the quaint town of West London on Cape Cod. The Sherlock Holmes Bookstore and Emporium is located at 222 Baker Street.

Her uncle bought the real estate, formerly a hardware store, for the address. The shop specializes in everything Sherlock Holmes, including busts and posters of famous actors playing Holmes, DVDs of the movies, mugs, towels, playing cards, salt and pepper shakers and thimbles, plus current book series spinoffs featuring Sherlock and his relatives. The shop cat is called Moriarty and Gemma's friend Jayne runs Miss Hudson's Tea Room at 220 Baker Street.

At the end of a particularly busy time at the store, Gemma finds a rare magazine that doesn't belong to the shop. In the crush of customers, someone slipped a priceless copy of Beeton's Christmas Annual on the current novel's bookshelf. The magazine features the first printing of A Study in Scarlet by A. Conan Doyle.

Gemma and Jayne set out to find the owner of the magazine, stumbling on her body instead. Gemma has Sherlockian observation and deduction skills and they are put to a test as she works to find the killer because the police arrest her for the murder.

Elementary, She Wrote, the first of The Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries is a fun series that will appeal to cozy lovers. It's told in first person by Gemma, a distant relative of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and includes lots of twists and turns to keep readers guessing. Vicki Delany also writes the Constable Molly Smith series which takes place in Canada. That series is edgier and includes multiple points of view.

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