Great story! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

This book is fabulous fun from Campbell Award winner and George R. R. Martin collaborator Lisa Tuttle. The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief is well written in both style and language to suit the setting. It feels like a good old fashioned Holmes novel - without Holmes.

Instead we have Miss Lane, a young woman who maintains a sassiness in this Victorian era novel. Full of hijinks and physic phenomena, Miss Lane and her male detective friend, Mr Jesperson, go searching for four missing mediums, where they encounter seances and and physics.

This feels like the beginning of a series, and one I will be watching out for. These characters have such a good vibe between that that makes half the book alone. The story drags you in from the start, and does not let go until the very end.

Great fun, and a great read. 4 out of 5 stars.

Here's the official blurb:

To solve some mysteries, one must embrace the impossible.

Has there ever been a more unlikely pair of consulting detectives than Jesperson and Lane? They certainly make a striking duo: Mr. Jasper Jesperson, with his shock of red hair and seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of all subjects—save common sense—and Miss Lane, whose logical mind is matched only by her fascination with psychic phenomena.

Their talents are rare . . . as are their customers. So when Jesperson and Lane are hired to track the nocturnal wanderings of a sleepwalking London business owner, they’re simply happy to be working again. The case begins as a window into the séances and other supernatural parlor games that are so popular these days, and takes a sinister turn as the intrepid investigators pull back the curtain on the cutthroat rivalries underpinning polite society.

But after several mediums go missing, it’s clear that Jesperson and Lane are in over their heads. For they’ve uncovered a presence beyond their understanding—an evil force that won’t hesitate to kill in order to achieve its nefarious ends.

The Curious Affair of the Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief caught my interest with the cover, the idea of a psychic, and this brief description: "Should you find yourself in need of a discreet investigation into any sort of mystery, crime or puzzling circumstances, think of Jesperson and Lane . . ."

The first page had promise. Miss Lane had been friend and collaborator to a "Miss X" -- a psychic investigator and member of the Society of Psychical Research, but when Miss Lane suspects her friend of her own brand of chicanery, Miss Lane takes abrupt leave of Miss X and returns to London.

In search of a job, Miss Lane happens on an advert for a position as a consulting detective with Mr. Jasper Jefferson. Her previous position involved investigating psychic phenomena, perhaps detective work would not be too much of a transition.

But the book didn't seem to know where to go: humor? quirky? serious? real or fake psychic abilities? The first seemed to offer an offbeat, quirky narrative, but that got lost fairly quickly. Miss X is initially presented as perhaps being vindictive and vengeful, but that, too, disappears. Miss Lane and Mr. Jesperson should have some chemistry, it is certainly implied, but it fails to feel genuine.

The possibility of fleshing out these characters remains, but in this first book in the series, Miss Lane and Mr. Jesperson remain two dimensional. Both characters need a good deal of development to help them evolve into interesting and unique personalities rather than pawns around which a story emerges. The plot is a little muddled and could use some efficient editing.

The Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief has potential for a fun and suspenseful series, and perhaps the next in the series will give a bit more "character" to the characters, a clearer tone, and a more incisive plot.

NetGalley/Random House

Paranormal/Mystery. First published in 2016; May 16, 2017.