Am I the only one who actually liked the book's second part more than the first? Birdy Edwards was, at least, an interesting character, while the first part simply concentrated on Sherlock solving a case without ever taking one sentence to characterize those main protagonists. It was my first and probably last Sherlock read, since Sherlock and Watson felt so poorly developed. I never understood where this love story in the second part came from, but it eventually became a little more exciting than the first. That's still the only positive thing I can say about this book which was so filled with spelling mistakes I sometimes barely could even read on.

I enjoy the concept of solving the case in the first half and discovering the backstory in the second, but I liked one more than the other. In the Holmes-focused part, there was an interesting mystery with a nice twist and Sherlocks's chemistry with the other detectives was delightful. The second half focused pretty much on a crime syndicate - not a favourite premise of mine - and featured no characters that really aroused my interest. Still, I was never bored. The freemen lodge Idea was kind of unique and I like that in Doyle's stories, America really feels like such a far off place, so different from England. The atmosphere is spot on in both parts, but this is my least favourite Sherlock Holmes book so far.