“I am not a consulting detective.”

I don’t want to be a consulting detective. All I want is to be a bookstore owner, and to sell books and other merchandise at the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium in West London, Massachusetts.

But somehow word has spread and I am getting a bit of a reputation around our pleasant little Cape Cod town. Case in point: Irene Talbot, my friend and a reporter with the West London Star, told her eleven-year-old niece Lauren that I know what others do not. That I can find out things no one else can. That I’m better than the police. Irene exaggerated my skills somewhat.

When Lauren’s kitten Snowball disappeared, Lauren attempted to hire me to find the blasted cat. What could I do but say no. I am not a consulting detective and I am certainly not a consulting cat detective. I promised to keep an eye out for the cat when I’m walking my dog Violet around the neighborhood. I said I’d put lost cat posters in the shop windows.

Everyone was mad at me for disappointing the little girl.

What do you know? I might not be a cat detective but Violet is. Violet, clever thing, alerted me to something trapped in the garden shed in my neighbours back yard and I opened it to find the frightened little kitten. I proudly took Snowball home, refused Lauren’s offer of a ten dollar fee and told her. . . “Gemma Doyle, Consulting Detective, at your service.”

That, in retrospect, might have been a mistake. There’s been a murder in our town and it seems as though Lauren’s mother, Sheila, might be involved.

Here comes the little girl, another ten dollars clutched in her hand along with promises to get a part-time job as soon as she’s able in order to pay me.

The police, in the person of West London lead detective Ryan Ashburton, are not going to be pleased. But once again, what can I do?

Find out what Gemma Doyle, who’s NOT a consulting detective, does about Lauren’s request in A Curious Incident, the sixth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery by Vicki Delany, released January 12th from Crooked Lane Books. 

“I am not a Consulting Detective,” Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells 10-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat, Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat, but her dog Violet follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a neighbor’s garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few days later Lauren is back with ten dollars in hand, wanting to once again hire a consulting detective, and this time for a far bigger job: Her mother has been accused of murdering her garden club rival.

Sheila Tierney’s garden, which everyone said was the one to beat for the West London Garden Club trophy, had been vandalized the night before the club’s early summer tour. Sheila confronted her former friend and gardening partner Anna Wentworth in a towering rage, and the women nearly came to blows. Later that night, after having won the trophy for best garden, Anna is found murdered and Sheila Tierney is the police’s prime suspect.

Despite herself, and despite the disapproval of her police detective boyfriend Ryan Ashburton, the game is once again afoot, and Gemma finds herself and Jayne Wilson using their powers of deduction to ponder yet another curious incident.

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About the author
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She’s currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane Books, the Tea By The Sea mysteries for Kensington, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin, and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library books for Crooked Lane.

Vicki is the 2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award for contributions to Canadian crime writing.

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