Redheaded Reviews: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

James Watson goes to a boarding school in London but his parents can't really afford it. So when an American boarding school in Connecticut offers him a rugby scholarship, James decides to take it since they have an excellent writing program even though it means going to America and being near his dad whom he hasn't spoken much too since the divorce when he was ten. His dad left his mom for another woman and James took the divorce out on his dad. His mom hopes that he'll spend some time with his dad while he's there. What really cinches the deal, though, is that Charlotte Holmes goes to this school and James has been slightly obsessed with her since he was a kid and his dad told him how she helped Scotland Yard find the stolen jewels and he began dreaming of a Holmes and Watson team up like their great great great grandfathers. James gets a nice but talkative roommate named Tom, who's like him, middle class and not rolling in the dough.

Holmes turns out to be rather wooden and tough and self-destructive. She's done any number of drugs in her life but now she's on oxy. She has a family that expects her to be emotionless in order to solve the crimes she needs to solve. To have emotions makes one weak. As part of getting her to come to the school, she was allowed to have a lab. It's in a closet in the science building. While high on oxy, Dobson raped her. Dobson said some nasty things about her in front of Watson and Watson got into a fight with him. Then she said a few words to Dobson in front of the crowd gathered and it was like the ultimate punch. She told Watson she fights her own battles. The next day Dobson is found dead in his bed with a snake bite, but Holmes sneaks in and investigates the room before the police do and find the rattlesnake skin and other evidence to indicate that Dobson had been poisoned with arsenic over time. The police immediately suspect Holmes and Watson. Holmes explains that they have been set up. James's father gets called in to act as their parent for police questioning. James finds that his father isn't as bad as the thought. Holmes realizes that this murder resembles the Holmes and Watson story "The Speckled Band"

Holmes and Watson go to the dance together and they run into the young woman who had asked Watson to the dance a while back but he had just gotten suspended and forbidden to do school activities for the fight so he told her he couldn't go. Besides he didn't want to go. Now he shows up with Holmes and she's upset. There's nothing to do but to avoid her. Leaving the dance party they stumble upon her body and realize she is choking on something. It's a paste jewel. Holmes gets it out of her mouth but there's a crowd who suspects that they did it to her. This is just like "The Adventure of the Blue Carbunkle". In the crowd is someone suspicious--a drug dealer. They chase him into the secret tunnels into a room that is covered with the murder victims, Dobson, and Elizabeth, who survives. The police find them there which looks pretty damning.

The Moriarty's are somehow involved in this. Holmes tells Watson that when she was fourteen she had August Moriarty as a tutor and she developed a crush on him that he didn't return as he was twenty and engaged. He didn't tell her he was taken just that the age difference was off and she had a crush that would wear off. She got mad and ordered a large shipment of coke from his brother Lucian and then called the cops on the two of them and he took the blame and served his time and now works for her brother Milo. Watson thinks that August blames her for ruining his life and is out for revenge. Holmes refuses to believe this. She is blinded by her belief that August couldn't be involved. It has to be someone at the school. There are two possibilities. One is the nurse who bought Dobson his protein formula and the other is the writing teacher whose brother owns a snake farm and is interested in writing about Holmes and Watson in action perhaps. Meanwhile, both Holmes and Watson have attempts made on their lives. Will they survive this case long enough to catch the killer? And will Holmes be able to do this without the help from her family?

This is a fabulous book and so like the Holmes and Watson book series only more modern and with younger detectives who have to worry about homework. This was a remarkably well-done book that really followed the characterizations of the families. the two main characters came from. Charlotte is someone you feel sorry for as you admire her intellect and bravery, you can't help but want her to have human feelings, even if it goes against the Holmes stereotype. And of course, you want the two of them to get together. I can't wait to read the second book in this trilogy. I really loved this book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

She was altogether colorless and severe, and still she managed to be beautiful. Not the way that girls are generally beautiful, but more like the way a knife catches the light, makes you want to take it in your hands.

-Brittany Caballaro (A Study in Charlotte p 5-6)

|”As I’ve told you before I can fight for myself. So stop looking at me like I’m an object of your pity.” “I don’t pity you.” “No. You just choose to feel all the things that I can’t, or don’t. It’s overwhelming. We’ve been friends less than a day. Though I suppose we’re neither of us normal.”

-Brittany Caballaro (A Study in Charlotte p 53)

Holmes had treated her body like an inconvenience, at best, and at the worst of times like an appendage she was actively trying to destroy.

-Brittany Caballaro (A Study in Charlotte p 84)

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I tried to imagine Holmes under a disco ball, jumping around to some Top 40 song. It was easier to imagine a whale dancing, or Gandhi.

-Brittany Caballaro (A Study in Charlotte p 91)

I’ve smoked at least twenty of these horrible things today and I am developing a wretched dependency, just you watch, we’ll be out in the middle of some sodding field watching a perfectly captivating murder take place firsthand, and I’ll have to run off in the middle because I need to have a Lucky Strike right then or I”ll be the one doing the killing.

-Brittany Caballaro (A Study in Charlotte p 202)