Embassy Row: A Mycroft Holmes Novel - Hardcover

The second in a series (Against the Brotherhood, 1997) featuring Sherlock Holmes - s brother Mycroft, a high-level diplomatic agent for England - s Admiralty, whose present assignment is to facilitate the signing of an agreement with Japan - an agreement that would guarantee England - s influence in Japanese-controlled waters and also increase the number of Japanese students accepted at England - s Dartmouth Naval Academy. Mycroft is aided by his secretary Guthrie, manservant Tyers, and actor Edmund Sutton, who convincingly masquerades as Mycroft, allowing his master to participate in secret meetings at the Swiss embassy with Japan - s Ambassador Tichigi and his secretaries Minato and Banadaichi, among others. It - s Mycroft who finds the body of Lord Edward Brackenheath, stabbed to death at the foot of the embassy - s terrace steps. Brackenheath, a wastrel and one of the conservatives opposing any ties to Japan, was married to Lady Francesca, an heiress and (as Mycroft is to discover) the secret lover of Japan - s Prince Jiro, a student at Dartmouth. Matters are further complicated by attacks on Sutton and Guthrie - the latter saved by Penelope Gatspy of the Golden Lodge. The solution, like most of what has gone before, is wordy, complex, and unconvincing. No treat here for Sherlock enthusiasts. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Mycroft Holmes returns for a flat and disappointing second adventure following Against the Brotherhood (1997). Sherlock's older and reputedly wiser brother is in the midst of secret and delicate naval negotiations with the Japanese at the Swiss Embassy in late-19th-century London. Many forces oppose the agreement: reactionary British elements and reactionary Japanese factions are against it; Chinese, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German interests all have reason to sabotage the treaty; in addition, two sinister international organizations, The Brotherhood and The Golden Lodge, might also wish to thwart it. A Japanese prince's clandestine affair with a British woman, should it become known, would scuttle the treaty. Holmes is at the heart of the effort to steer the treaty through these obstacles. He is aided by his secretary, Paterson Erskine Guthrie; the actor Edmund Sutton, who plays his double; and by Philip Tyers, who is housekeeper, cook and nursemaid to them all. Amid the muddled intrigue, attacks are made on Holmes and his allies, and a British diplomat is assassinated with a Japanese dagger. Many readers will undoubtedly prove more astute than Holmes, who seems unable to get ahead of the game and provides little evidence of his reputedly great intellect.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.