The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: February 6, 2018

Review

This is the third installment in the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency series. Stratford provides readers a preface where the inaccuracies of the historical facts are explained to mesh with his fictionalized characters of Ada Bryon Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer and Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein". The medical views of bloodletting by leeches are the focus of keeping Ada hostage in her own home in this episode. All the characters from the second book are there ready to do her bidding as it becomes apparent to Ada that various criminal connections with a kidnapped dog, a counterfeit dinosaur display and mesmerized clown-white faced burglars are all connected. Some of the reasoning that Ada uses comes from the first case in the first book. The connections that Ada makes do not seem plausible and the back matter that explains each historical character will add confusion due to the changes made by the author so that the characters fit into the Wollstonecraft world. A preview of chapter 4 from the next book in the series appears in the back.

Overall Book Score: fair