Lame. There is a detective named Sherlock Holmes in this book, but he bears no resemblance to Doyle's character. Mary Russell's personality changes from page to page. The detecting the to do is mostly stumbling about while discussing how clever they are. There's a chapter in the middle about a tour of Palestine that has nothing to do with the plot. The villain, a fat schoolteacher, is ridiculous, as is her scheme of repeatedly nearly, but not quite, killing Holmes. In short, it's a poorly written book that attempts to gain points by stealing a character from another author, and fails.