Flautopiccolo

It took a couple months for us to read the Lady Sherlock series, by Sherry Thomas. The ninth (and currently last one available) was released when I was reading book seven. But now we have to wait for more books in the series.

Book 1 A Study in Scarlet Women

8/16/26-8/19/26
Minuteman loan due Sept 4 (on hold a couple days)
Summer 1886

Love the references to Sherlock Holmes:

• Charlotte’s patron is Mrs. Watson, widow of Surgeon-Major John Watson
• Charlotte to Mrs. Watson: I thought calling myself Charles Holmes would have been too obvious. Sherlock is similar enough to Charlotte without being its exact masculine equivalent.
• Mrs. Watson has some properties on Upper Baker Street, and they set up an office at number 18.
• The tutor Sophia Lonsdale married was named Moriarty.
• Livia Holmes is going to write up Sherlock Holmes cases, fictionalized.

Lord Ingram closed his eyes, but it was no use. He was too accustomed to giving Holmes everything he could, always with a sense of urgency. And a sense of futility: What Holmes wanted most was beyond his power. Some people never meet the right person in life. They, on the other hand, met when they were too young to realize what they had found in each other. And when they did at last see the light, it was too late.

Charlotte describes Baconian ciphers to Mrs. Marbleton: It’s a system devised by Francis Bacon to hide a message in relatively plain sight. If you’ll examine the letters that have been pasted, they are of two different typefaces, Caslon and Didot—and only those two.

London mail delivery is eleven times a day!

Mrs. Watson sets the scene, very theatrically, for Sherlock to consult with Inspector Treadles, via Charlotte.

Maximum tolerable chins = 1.4

Book 2 A Conspiracy in Belgravia

8/19/26-8/23/26
Minuteman loan
Summer 1886–starts the day after book 1 ends

Lord Bancroft proposes to Charlotte: But you are not ill-suited to me. I would be happy to never be invited anywhere again—you would serve as a good excuse. I would be happy to never indulge in small talk again—I have a feeling you share that sentiment. And I will be busy and away from home a great deal—not something most brides look for in a groom, but for you it would count as an added attraction, no doubt.

Lord Ingram was not the late Duke of Wycliffe’s fourth son, but the product of an affair between the duchess and one of the country’s most prominent bankers.

Sir Henry had happened to be away that day. Livia and Charlotte had a standing appointment to ransack his study and read all his letters whenever they had a suitable window of time.

The dossier from Lord Bancroft included a cipher: a page of uppercase letters with no breaks. The clue informed her that it was a Vigenère cipher. Vigenère ciphers had been in use for centuries but were first solved only a generation ago. Mr. Charles Babbage, who managed the groundbreaking feat, did not publish his methods. But Charlotte, with a mind in search of use and a great deal of time, had made Livia compose several Vigenère ciphers, so she could learn how to decode them on her own.

I hadn’t heard the term ‘denary numbers’ before.

Charlotte, after Mrs. Watson asks if they need anything from Harrod’s: We are being followed. Harrod’s would be a good place to get rid of this unauthorized addition to our party. Also, it has been a while since I browsed their cheese selection.

Charlotte has told Lord Bancroft that Moriarty is involved in this affair: That Vigenère cipher always struck me as excessive. And the Braille on the dead man’s garments—ridiculously complicated. Then I remembered the ciphers Mrs. Marbleton presented when she first called on me. They were much simpler, of course, but still had a similarly Baroque feel.

After seeing the picture of Finch at his former school, Charlotte recognizes that he is Mott.

Book 3 The Hollow of Fear

8/29/26-9/2/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
Fall 1886–starts immediately after book 2 ends, then jumps ahead several months

Anxiety about Lord Ingram being the main suspect caused a couple of very late nights reading!

Charlotte to Finch, after he told her that he had been Moriarty’s cryptographer: I had to solve a Viginere cipher recently. It nearly broke my will to live.

Sherrinford Holmes: Charlotte’s undercover alias

Chief Inspector Fowler to Inspector Treadles (after Olivia quoted from Hamlet): Well, I always enjoy a case more once witnesses start quoting Shakespeare, don’t you?

The Moriarty who takes Charlotte up in his carriage at the beginning turns out to be Moriarty’s brother, the father of Olivia’s Mr. Stephen Marbleton.

Book 4 The Art of Theft

9/3/26-9/8/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
December 1886–starts 5 days after book 3 ends

The reason for the super difficult mission didn’t seem to justify the huge amount of risk.

Mr. Marbleton is almost 21 and Olivia is almost 28.

Lord Ingram about Charlotte: At least once in his life, he would like her to look at him as she would a morsel of fine French pastry. Or a slice of Victoria sandwich. Or even a humble piece of buttered bread.

Mr. Marbleton, after he is told that Lord Ingram will provide expertly forged letters of character: I can even provide my own forged letter of character, if Lord Ingram is too busy.

Lord Ingram crawling through the maze of tunnels within the walls of the chateau.

Lady Ingram tells Charlotte that the chateau has been preparing for art thieves: There is an overabundance of them this year.

Charlotte’s false stomach contains at least 2 blankets, a pocket lantern and a bobby’s night stick.

Charlotte knew that the Van Dyke at the reception was a forgery because Mary’s gown had an anachronistic brachistochrome curve.

Book 5 Murder on Cold Street

9/10/26-9/13/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
December 1886–starts immediately after book 4 ends.

Another book where a main character (Inspector Treadles this time) is the main suspect.

Penelope, after a bad crossing from France: Presently I shall petition all and sundry to bring the tunnel under the Channel to fruition at the earliest possible date.

Mrs. Sullivan to Charlotte: They don’t offer much challenge anymore, the small notices. Hardly anyone thinks to devise real ciphers. One can only decode so many Caesar ciphers before they become as tasteless as old bread.

Charlotte calculated that she needed to ingest at least four more brussels sprouts before she considered herself virtuous enough for buche de Noel.

Book 6 Miss Moriarty, I Presume?

9/20/26-9/25/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
February 1887

Charlotte to Lord Ingram about the escape plan in case the meeting with Moriarty goes south: Bernadine is sedated and in Mrs Watson’s coach along with essential luggage; Charlotte and Mrs Watson each have a large amount of banknotes and two firearms, and the coach will be brought to the back door shortly after Moriarty arrives.

Telephones are starting to appear in houses (Inspector Treadles, Mrs. Watson).

Learned about the Stanhope optical device: a tiny Victorian-era novelty item that lets you view microscopic photographs without needing an expensive microscope.

Book 7 A Tempest at Sea

9/26/26-10/1/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
April 1887

Interesting, illuminating flashbacks to the night of the murder

Charlotte is undercover as Mrs Ramsay, who unfortunately is well known to have a very light appetite.

Of course Lord Ingram packed his lock picking tools on a cruise where they were planning to steal something.

The ancient-looking pfennig turned out to be the dossier, concealing microphotographic film pellicules inside.

Totally did not suspect Inspector Brighton. And it’s nice and tidy that Georg Bittner, Frau Schmidt’s temporary charge, is the son that Moriarty hid away from Miss Moriarty and Mr Finch.

Book 8 A Ruse of Shadows

10/2/26-10/13/26
trade paperback borrowed from library
August 1887

Very complicated plots and sub-plots, with two cases becoming connected and a counterfeit Mrs. Claiborne.

Garwood Hall: Elizabethan timbers, Gothic turrets, Palladian columns and an Italianate belvedere

Postal delivery was remarkably frequent and swift in London – friends living in different districts could exchange correspondences several times in a day.

Chief Inspector Talbot to Charlotte, about Lord Bancroft’s death: My superiors are satisfied that he had been shot by the guards while trying to escape Ravensmere and somehow managed, without outside help and without leaving a trail of blood, to reach a spot six miles away before succumbing to his injury.

Johnny receives a legacy (supposedly from Mr. Underhill) and Jesse and Mumble are invited to be founding members of the Baker Street Irregulars.

Livia is paid 25 pounds for her first story which will soon appear in Boston’s Christmas Annual. Inspired by Lord Ingram’s inventing a Sylvestrina Society to lure away house owner Sylvestrina Calder, Livia starts planning a new story based on the recent events and calling it The Redheaded League.

Book 9 The Vanished Sister

10/15/26-10/18/26
released 9/29/26; bought the kindle edition
August 1890

The central figure is Mrs. Watson. And the underlying theme is dysfunctional families and unhappy marriages, with another murderous sibling and a baby swap.

De Lacey Industries had been the front for Moriarty’s operations in Britain, and his chief lieutenant therein always referred to as de Lacey.

Lord Ingram’s seaside cottage: Miss Charlotte had dubbed it Sans Souci—French for Without Worries—and Lord Ingram had had the name engraved upon a plaque and affixed to the gate.

The plaque on the gatepost declared that High Burrow was built in 1561: The house’s front door was flanked on either side by an undeniably charming procession of chess topiaries from pawn to king. The grand entry continued the theme with a black-and-white marble floor laid out in the pattern of a chessboard.

Justina Carstairs to Mrs. Watson: You’re right not to bring my niece here. Nobody is safe in this house, Joanna; nobody.

Livia spent most of the morning helping with a parlor production of H.M.S. Pinafore that Mrs. Stanmore Newell wished to mount the next evening.

Lord Ingram shook hands with the onetime protégé of their friend Inspector Treadles and addressed him by his current title: Inspector MacDonald

Charlotte did not have the highest opinion of marriage as an institution, but the Carstairses’ union sounded exhausting.

Automobiles in August 1890 (?): these days there were various veiled hats for riding in open carriages and automobiles

The Treadles have a daughter! Little Violet, whose arrival two years ago had been an ecstatic surprise.

And Inspector Treadles would become Chief Inspector Treadles by the beginning of next year.

Miss Holmes was now friends with retired Chief Inspector Talbot, who still had a great many admirers inside Scotland Yard.

Noble House: The interior of the manor was ecstatically baroque: marble columns, gilded friezes, and painted ceilings that might as well have illustrated the entire history of western civilization.

Charlotte, about the embroidered codes: I’m not sure whether the message on Mrs. Carstairs’s wedding petticoat would pass muster in a court of law.

Agnate: relatives in the patrilineal line

Livia and Stephen Marbleton are engaged! And Lord Ingram’s children are going to visit with Charlotte.