Book Review: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Brad Ricca

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes is a book written about female detective Grace Humiston who solved the 1917 missing girl case in New York City.

The book starts from the late 1800s and takes us through the journey of Grace Humiston in her career. Written by Brad Ricca, published by St. Martins Griffin, and based in New York, it is a book based on a very strong research carried out by the author.

As the title suggests, the book is about female detective Grace Humiston and how it led her to the Ruth Cruger missing girl case in New York. After reading the book, I came across many readers who didn’t like the book because it wasn’t written in the conventional way as it covers the female detective journey till her death.

The author also tells us about the police system and its shortcomings as a unit in the case and how a female detective with her persistence solves the case and found the missing girl and also opened the pathway for the public to question the other missing girls that were never found.

We also see the travesties of the system and the attitude of male officials and why in its whole this is an important book to write.

What happens today is also seen in those times that it took this major case solving by a female official to make the police department of New York and government officials to dig deeper in the case and find out about other missing girls. The books’ characters are real life police officials and prisoners.

I really liked the way the author traced Grace Humiston path and how she stumbled upon the New York case. At some places you will find there is something missing it’s only in the end you find out the real reason, which may bring up lot of emotions.

Its unconventional way of storytelling is what attracted me to the book in the first place because if you are an avid thriller genre fan, it breaks all stereotypes that we see in the fictional stories and what’s really going on there in the system. We also see the suffragette happening at one place and the missing girl investigation in the other.

You will also stumble upon various male detectives who helped Grace Humiston and their role in solving the missing girl case. The author takes us through their stories and how every detective unfolds their traits.

If you are a gender studies’ student or understand gender, you will understand why this book was needed to be written and how a single woman survives in a man’s world fighting and proving that this is what it took for women to make their place in the system. It’s no use if you as a reader don’t go through the entire book not skipping the acknowledgments and the notes by the author. They are as entertaining as the book is.

Without giving too much away, the book is an eye opener about the system and how that one missing girl case moved the entire nation because of Grace Humiston. It’s worth its price and time.

(Article submitted by Sukaina)