Summary: An 18-year-old Sherlock helps his older brother Mycroft.
Mycroft and Sherlock is the second in a trilogy of books that started with Mycroft Holmes. That first book followed Mycroft as a young employee of the British War Department seeking to understand why children were dying in the Caribbean. I won’t give away any spoilers from that first book, but this second book is several years after the first. Mycroft was able to gain wealth and access to the Queen after his success. And his best friend Douglas was able to start a home for boys (Nicholas House) in memory of the loss of his family.
It is that home for boys that this book begins. Mycroft is frustrated by the young Sherlock’s detachment from the world. Mycroft is obsessed with world affairs, economics, and global concerns. Sherlock has no interested in significant world issues; he wants to understand small-level crimes. Mycroft forces Sherlock to spend several days at Douglas’ Nicholas House to help him understand his privilege and how the day-to-day concerns of the poor should matter to him. At the same time, Douglas tries to retrieve his goods from a ship that has run aground in suspicious circumstances. Meanwhile, Mycroft has to run an “errand” for the Queen.
The mix of these three tasks leads to a mystery where the interests of all three men converge. There is a disappearance and eventual death of one of the boys from Nicholas House, which interests Sherlock. Douglas recovers most of his goods but discovers a smuggling operation that impacts his work. And Mycroft is concerned about the economics of the realm and a love interest in a Chinese immigrant woman.
The series is more thriller than mystery. And it is an enjoyable book, but in the end, I think it gets a little convoluted. The lack of communication between all of the characters because they are all hiding something from each other is annoying. I know why it was done here, but it is an old trope that people try to protect others by hiding the very information that would help solve the problem, and I have seen that overused lately. I listened to the audiobook of this one after reading the first on Kindle. (That first book is still $1.99 on Kindle). The audio is quality is excellent, and the voices are distinct and appropriate. I will listen to or read the third book fairly soon.
Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook