Secret Letters

Secret Letters
by Leah Scheier

Inquisitive and observant, Dora dreams of escaping her aristocratic country life to solve mysteries alongside Sherlock Holmes. So when she learns that the legendary detective might be her biological father, Dora jumps on the opportunity to travel to London and enlist his help in solving the mystery of her cousin’s ransomed love letters. But Dora arrives in London to devastating news: Sherlock Holmes is dead. Her dreams dashed, Dora is left to rely on her wits—and the assistance of an attractive yet enigmatic young detective—to save her cousin’s reputation and help rescue a kidnapped heiress along the way. (Description from Amazon.com)

I really enjoyed this historical mystery.  Dora has characteristics that make her very similar to her father, Sherlock Holmes, his analytic mind, an astute observational sense... but, she's much easier to relate to as a main character. She's charmingly flawed, but still smart.  I loved her interactions with the other investigators she meets and watching her walk the line between her station and the career path she'd like to pursue.  I hope that more books come out featuring Dora.  I'm sure other historical mystery fans (those that like Y.S. Lee's books, especially) will also enjoy this one. 

Full disclosure: Borrowed from my Library 

Monday's Movie and TV Talk! (4)

 

Welcome to Monday's Movie and TV Talk! I don't know if I'll do this every Monday, or just sporadically on Mondays, but I LOVE TV and movies, so I figured why not add some of that to the blog for fun?? It'll be especially awesome when I can tie things into the YA book world...

 

So, today I wanted to talk about the cropping up of Russian spies...I've been watching my normal TV shows and keeping an eye on what's coming out soon and I noticed that several storylines seem to focus on Russian spies.  Are we thinking Cold War part II might be coming?  Hmmm...

 

For instance, on the January 3rd episode of ELEMENTARY (starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, a woman ends up dead in an industrial dryer in a hotel.  *Spoilers Ahead!!*  In digging deeper into the woman's background, Sherlock eventually deduces that both the woman and her husband are actually Russian spies! I thought it was really interesting, too, to see how the writers crafted things so that the couple fight over whether or not to bring their American-born daughter into the family business as a second generation agent...  *End Spoilers*

 

Then, premiering on FX on January 30th, is the new show, THE AMERICANS. Starring Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, and Noah Emmerich, the show follows two KGB agents posing as Americans in the suburbs of Washington D.C. I find the whole premise intriguing and will probably watch at least the first few episodes to try it out. 

 

Have I missed any Russian spy sightings lately?  I feel like there must be more...