Lock and Mori

Lock and Mori is a modern-day retelling of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyal. However there are many twists, the biggest one being that it is told first person through the eyes of James Moriarty. Oh, and James Moriarty is a girl. WHAT!? Yeah, weird right.

In modern London, Mori runs into Sherlock Holmes in all his analogical personality. Mori, much like Prof Moriarty in the original stories is a mastermind as well. She has all of her assignments done months in advance and corrects her teachers. She runs into Sherlock (Lock as a nickname later) and finds him very much annoying. After she goes home and stops her abusive father from hitting her brothers again, she runs out to the park to get some air. Here she meets Lock and their game begins. A murder has happened and they can easily see how the police are messing it up. The game is afoot.

But soon this murder, and others they find are connected,  hit to close to home. Mori must figure it out.

Then, as any good young adult novel would, love is in the air. This was really odd for me. Moriarty and Holmes kissing and whatnot? WHAT?! yeah, weird right? But the way Heather W. Petty has created the characters works well and is believable enough for a YA book.

I spotted whodunnit fairly straight off, but it's not so much finding out whodunnit but how she deals with it. The bigger mystery for me was her mother. There were so many illusions to who she was but not enough to have a conviction. That is what kept me reading for the last half of this small, 200 page book. The surprise was an interesting one. There are also a few ways that you can take some of the happenings in the story, how a certain piece of evidence presents itself in the story for example, in which Mori asks herself--therefore us, the reader--questions that she doesn't give us clear answers too. So we, as good readers, can make our own conclusions.

There were a few things I need to warn younger readers/parents of young readers. There is a scene with F bombs dropped and other scenes (not graphic in the least bit) where it is implied they slept together, more than just falling asleep which happens too.

The only other complaints I have are the lack of Watson (though he makes a few brief appearances) and Sherlock only appears to be in there to kiss and be annoying. There is also an Alice that comes into the picture, but she doesn't stay long. There is build up for her, but I feel the climax for this character was lacking.

Oh, I also don't really care for the front cover. Not to be rude to the guy who is supposed to be Sherlock, but he doesn't look like a young Sherlock too me. Too much Benedict Cumberbatch, I guess. :D

But there is another book out called Mind Games, and I am interested in reading it to find out what happens next. Don't read the back/jacket cover of Mind Games before you read Lock and Mori, because it has spoilers for this book.