Source: Goodreads
Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes attempt to spend their Christmas holiday visiting their families in England, relaxing after their near murders in A Study in Charlotte, but the great game has other plans for them. Holmes’ uncle suddenly goes missing, and Charlotte and Jamie are left to pick up the pieces of his undercover investigation. In Germany. Working with and against the Moriartys. It’s a test of their relationship, which is complicated enough, to begin with, and could spell the end for our dynamic duo.
I felt conflicted going into this story, in large part because I thought the first book was rather dark, and I wasn’t looking forward to a series that was going to make me depressed. However, I am delighted to say that The Last of August wasn’t nearly so deep or mysterious as its predecessor.
That being said, I still had issues with it. As with the first book, the reveal waits until the very end. The difference being that in this one the reveal made absolutely no sense, even to Charlotte. It was obvious something was wrong throughout the book, but not one of the characters was able to see the twists coming. I found the fact that no one had the full story and continued to make stupid mistakes rather ridiculous. Charlotte and her family are Holmeses for goodness sake. We spent the entire first book being told how good Charlotte is at what she does, and how bad Jamie is at it all. This book flipped everything on its head. Charlotte wanted to be invisible rather than at the forefront of everything, Jamie became significantly more outgoing, and yet somehow everything still ended in disaster. I’m at a loss to understand where the third book is going to take our now seriously uncoordinated duo.
HHC Rating: 3.25 Stars
Other reviews in this series: Book #1 – A Study in Charlotte