The Mummy of Mayfair

tl;dr
A fun mystery that builds on all the promise of the first book, while also forging new ground for two budding detectives.

Thoughts
Timothy Badger and Benjamin Watson are back. This time, they've been hired for a simple job - protect a few Egyptian artifacts from going missing during a fancy party. But when one of the hosts turns up dead, it's up to them to discover if the killer is the curse of the mummy, or something closer to home. I was incredibly neutral about the first book, but it showed enough promise that I wanted to give the second one a go. Well, here we are a year later, and sure enough, that promise is fulfilled. This one reads a lot better! My biggest hangup with the first book was that it seemed very little detective work was happening. Our charming heroes were simply lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to overhear all the big reveals. This time around, they are fully in it - collecting clues, following leads, interviewing suspects, and unraveling the mystery by their own wits and deductions. They spend a lot of time discussing the "method," the manner in which Sherlock seems to magically conjure up solutions. It's always been a bit of sleight of hand in the canon: hidden clues, conclusions a reader couldn't possibly hope to obtain, and solutions featuring players hidden from view until the last minute. This book diverges from the Conan Doyle formula for the better, giving us all the same information our heroes get so we can solve along with the boys. The book also diverges from the canon by including a Very Victorian romance, replete with longing gazes, wistful sighs, and the constant reminder that these characters come from different classes. The historical setting is well-researched, with plenty of immersive details and flourishes. Overall it's a very strong historical mystery, and I look forward to the next one with great anticipation.

I had not read this author before and this the second book in the series., the irregular detectives. Timothy Badger is a former Baker street irregular and Benjamin Watson are private detectives, somehow being supported by Sherlock Holmes. When the dead body of a man who had hired them is found in a mummy sarcophagus, they are off to solve another mystery, with occasional hints and direction from the great detective himself. The story started out slow but the characters pulled me in. I would definitely consider reading the next book in this series.

If you like Sherlock Holmes and mystery with a little Egyptian spice then this is a must read. This book gave me everything that I could ask for, as a Sherlock Holmes lover. I felt like I was watching a TV show that 8 couldn't stop watching

I really enjoyed this book, it had that feel that I was looking for from a sequel in the Irregular Detective Mystery series. I was engaged with the mystery element and thought it was really well designed. The characters were what I was hoping for and enjoyed the overall feel of them in this story. Jeri Westerson has a great writing style and can’t wait for more.

I really enjoyed this book.

I’ve not read the previous outing of this detective pair but it didn’t matter as enough information was given about the characters to make me feel like I hadn’t missed anything crucial. However I also didn’t feel like anything was rehashed to the point where I wouldn’t want to read the first book - there was enough intrigue.

I felt the characters were quite well rounded & I wanted to read more about them. I especially liked the appearances of Sherlock Holmes - I felt that the author caught the essence of him.

The plot was interesting & something I’d not thought of before & it was lovely & easy to read. I’d recommend.

Thanks to the author, publishers & NetGalley for access to this arc in return for an honest review.

Badger and Watson have been hired on to do security at a Mummy Unwrapping, something that is currently all the rage in London among the tonne. Neither of them get it but if it helps advertise their detective agency than they'll do it. As the time of the unveiling is getting closer the man of the hour and the man paying them, Dr. Sawyer is absent, determining that the show must go on Dr. Archer his friend begins the festivities without Sawyer. Only to discover that Dr. Sawyer had been there the whole time, wrapped in bandages and placed in the sarcophagus Dr. Sawyer has become the main act in his own show, a victim of the Mummy's Curse. Desperate to find the person who murdered his friend Dr. Archer hires the detectives on the spot and while Badger and Watson know that this case will be anything but simple to solve they discover quite rapidly that curses are the least of their concerns as they discover that Dr. Sawyer's wrappings quite literally lead to a complicated plot of greed, blackmail, and murder.


I have definitely found my new Holmes adjacent book series! This was a well done mystery that drives home the point that the simplest answer is usually the right one, hidden in corruption of the highest order by members of the nobility with interesting main characters and adorable love interests that do not over power the main story.

What really makes this a page turner is Badger and Watson though, they are truly great characters that pay homage to Holmes and in turn Conan Doyle while being their own characters. They aren't carbon copies of Holmes, they learned from him certainly but they do things their own way using their own life experiences to reach their conclusions. In the end what this does is take Holmes off of the pedestal that so many people put him on. And I don't mean that in a bad way, Holmes is a great character, but he's also a completely unrelatable character for most of us. Yes, his methods make sense logically but actually applying them are not for mere humans. The man looks at something for thirty seconds and has a complicated crime figured out. That doesn't happen in this book, while Badger and Watson do apply Holmes' method they do it in a way the rest of us would have and when they miss the big clue that would have ended the book in like the fifth chapter it is, again, relatable. And I'll admit I'd rather have relatable characters than a character with damn near super human powers of deduction.

Overall, I'll definitely be picking up this series and am looking forward to the next one as Dr. Watson will be in it.

Thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan and I very much enjoyed this Holmes spin off, at least I think that is the proper term. The two main characters are Timothy Badger, a former member of Sherlock Holmes’ Irregulars, and Benjamin Watson, a young black man who was a former chemist’s assistant and a self taught chemist in his own right. The two of them have formed the Badger and Watson Private Detective Agency, through the sponsorship of Holmes himself.

It’s a bit like getting a glimpse of a young and inexperienced, but learning, Sherlock Holmes. Badger and Watson attempt to employ the Holmes method, but rather than an infallible genius, they are much more easy to relate too, as they make mistakes and doubt themselves at times. It was really quite refreshing.

The author was well researched on the time period and I enjoyed the glimpses of some of the details of how life in Victorian London actually worked, both for the posh classes as well as the lower classes. She mixed in real people and locations among the characters and places and used actual street names and trolley and omnibus lines to ground the story in reality.

The story is set in London of 1895. An eminent doctor has asked Badger and Watson to provide security for his mummy unwrapping party. There was an actual fad at the time among the wealthy classes involving the study of and collecting Egyptian antiquities. But imagine the shock when the mummy is unwrapped only to reveal the body of the doctor who hired them!

The detectives are hired by the doctor’s colleague to find the killer and they work with Inspector Hopkins of Scotland Yard and with newspaper reporter Ellsie Littleton to track down the killer. Ellsie is also their Dr. Watson and shares their adventures with her readers. This was book two of a series and I cannot wait to go back and read book one and any future volumes in the series. I highly recommend this to all Sherlock Holmes fans and fans of other Victorian mysteries, as well as those of Agatha Christie.

The book was simply a grand ol’ time! While being the second book in a series, it required no prior knowledge of our main characters to get a firm grasp on the story. Our main characters (and dual POV’s) are private detectives, Tim Badger and Ben Watson. Utilizing Sherlock Holmes’ advice and techniques, Badger and Watson work together to find the culprit and unravel who was behind an esteemed doctors ultimate demise.

The first thing I noticed as I began reading was the author’s duedilligence in capturing the old-timey language of 1890s London. This charming addition, along with other references skillfully woven into the story, painted a beautiful picture of London and made it apparent that the author conducted thorough research in preparation for this story.

Despite this being my first mystery novel, I felt hooked almost the entire way through! While the beginning was a bit slow, as our author had to establish our characters and plot, it quickly picked up once the groundwork was laid. It was quite fun to play along and deduce my own conclusions with the information discovered as the story progressed. I will say I noticed something early on which heavily hinted at who the murderer was, which took away from my enjoyment a bit. Regardless, the story held my interest and had many quirky scenes that really sucked me in (hello Sardines game?!).

Our main characters were both vastly different yet equally entertaining. Every character felt fleshed out and intentionally placed in the story. This was genuinely such a joy to read! If the author makes a third book in this series, I would not hesitate to pick it up and see where Badger and Watson’s story continues!

As always, thank you to the author, publishers, and NetGalley for access to this arc.