Fortune Favors the Dead

Here I was thinking I was settling in for a cozy, low-stakes whodunit with sapphic undertones, only to get hit with a plot with a little more oomph (and violence!) than I was expecting, and even got my heartstrings tugged on in the process.

Is it inherently a Sherlock Holmes reference if a mystery is told from the perspective of an apprentice working with a seasoned and established detective? My knee-jerk reaction says 'yes', but Willowjean Parker and Lillian Pentecost don't cleanly map onto Watson and Holmes, respectively. 'Will' is a tomboy ex-circus carney with a bizarre but distinct set of skills, and Ms. Pentecost is getting on in years and is desperate to solve as many mysteries and exact as much justice as she can with what time she has left.

Without spoiling anything, this was trucking along as a standard noir-adjacent historical mystery with some feminist inverted tropes until about the 90% mark. The culminating explanation scene was Christie-esque and gooped me good, but then the final chapter after that so cleanly wrapped up a loose end that happened so early on that I forgot about it, while also allowing an obvious off-ramp for potential future installments. Only after finishing it did I realize this was the first entry in a series, but it holds up as a standalone so don't worry about that.

Overall a fun and pleasant surprise that got me in my gay little feelings.