My mom wanted me to read this series and bought me the first 3 books. I’m not going to lie, I’m not big on book recommendations as I seem to find my own books to add to my TBR pile just fine. So adding more recs on top of that is overwhelming. On top of it, having a family member not only recommend but BUY me the book the read… there is added pressure. It easily goes to the top of the pile. 
    So I begrudgingly picked up the book and looked back at my towering TBR pile. I feel it’s important you understand my head space as I sat down to start this book. 

This is important because starting on page one, I was impressed. 
      I was immediately drawn in to the timeline, set back in 1856. The detective losing his memory was also an ingenious way to start a book. (I can see why other people hate this premises.) The main character and the readers find out about the main character along with the MC. Just a goofy, unnecessary, but entertaining, aspect of the story. You (the reader) would be trying to solve the mystery with the MC and then the MC would completely not care about the mystery and worry about himself and who he was before lost his memory. I could see how people might be annoyed with this shift, but it felt very real life to me. I’m pretty sure we would all worry more about ourselves than doing our job. 
    Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Maybe it was coming off the Sherlock Holmes stories, so diving into this *almost* wanna-be Holmes like story .. it was fun. Obviously, no one can touch the excellent writing of Arthur Conan Doyle, but this was a fun modern twist. 

I find it extra interesting how split the reviews are on this book. I didn’t take it too seriously. This isn’t a work of historical fiction, but I also don’t think that’s what Perry is trying to do here. So enjoy it for what it is. 

​     What did you think? Let me know below!