I really loved this book in a new to me author. The characters and location really and to the story. I can't wait to read the next one. This book keeps you guessing until the end.

This was a fun, cute cozy mystery! I love the theme throughout, and I will definitely be continuing with the series.

This was so good and another great addition to the series! One man is obsessed with a woman who is already in love with another man. What could possibly go wrong when she decides to get married? Loved it!

A very lively mystery series continues with book #6, A Baker Street Wedding. This series is well known for giving readers an entertaining trip through whatever mystery pops up. Michael Robertson writes the characters as if he knows them and wants you to see them as he does. They could be your neighbors or the topic of the next newspaper headline! In fact, trying to escape the newspapers leads the newlywed couple to the current mystery. The brothers have a great interaction that you'll enjoy as they keep up with the letters sent to Sherlock Holmes and fumble through their personal lives. If you have not read this series, I encourage you to read them all. Each one is enjoyable as a stand alone but together they provide some very real entertainment.

I did get a sense of recognition when I started to read A Baker Street Wedding. Not that I had read any of the previous five books in this series. It's rather I think I've seen the first book in the library, read the blurb, but never borrowed it. Now, I want to hit myself in the head for not doing so because this book was hilarious.

Reading the latest book in a series, without having read the previous books mean that you can feel pretty lost. However, I quickly found my footing when it came to this book and the more I read the more I felt at home. Also, I really felt that I need to read the previous books.

Lawyers Reggie Heath and his brother Nigel are the ones responsible for answering the Sherlock Holmes letters that are sent to Baker Street. That's part of the deal for them to rent the place. In this book, the letter part gets a bit sidelined when Reggie's wedding to Laura turns into a dramatic paparazzi stunt. Nigel meanwhile has flown to LA to try to save his relationship. At the office is secretary Lois at a loss of what to do when a strange man shows up and starts to investigate where Reggie and Laura have gone.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I'm thrilled to have found the two first one available to listen to. I recommend this book to Sherlock Holmes fans!

Michael Robertson gives us the Baker Street Wedding in which actress Laura Rankin marries Reggie Heath whose law offices were Baker Street Chambers where he is obliged to answer letters to Sherlock Holmes. Reggie and Laura go missing and his law clerk Lois and her assistant have to find out where they vanished. Laura and Reggie are in serious trouble in this entry in the Baker Street mysteries. Find out why and whodunit.

This is the sixth book in this series and the first one I have read. I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I had read the previous books. Still, it did work as a stand alone and I will go back and catch up with the other five. Having a fondness for both Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes mysteries, I have had this series sitting on my TBR stack for way too long.
Reggie Heath (a lawyer) and his new bride, Laura Rankin (an actress) are newly married and their wedding didn't go as planned. Trying to avoid the paparazzi they end up, thanks to Laura, in a small village in Cornwall where Laura had lived as a young girl. She has agreed to take over a part in Macbeth when the previous actress meets an accidental death...or was it foul play? Soon, Laura goes missing and Reggie enlists the help of Lois, his clerk and Siger. Turns out Laura has secrets buried 20 years in her past.
Even without knowing the backstory I really enjoyed this entry and I will now move the other five books closer to the top of my TBR pile.

"A Baker Street Wedding" eBook was published in 2018 and was written by Michael Robertson (https://www.thebakerstreetletters.com). This is the sixth novel in the "The Baker Street Letters" series by Mr. Robertson. 

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’. The story is set in the contemporary UK. The primary characters are lawyer Reggie Heath and the celebrated actress Laura Rankin. 

Rankin and Heath have just gotten married and try to escape the publicity by disappearing to a small town where Rankin once attended school. They are soon drawn into a mystery. Rankin is asked to fill in for a woman in a community play. The woman has accidentally fallen off a cliff and died. Soon though Rankin and Heath begin to question the accidental nature of the death.

There is also an unusual character that shows up with Heath's secretary in the rural town. Is he Sherlock Holmes?

I enjoyed the 5 hours I spent reading this 304-page mystery. This was an OK mystery and I liked the strange character that shows up, though there needs to be more explanation of the character (perhaps that is covered in one of the earlier novels in the series, though Rankin and Heath do not appear to know him). Even though there are five earlier novels in the series, this novel reads well on its own. The cover art is OK but doesn't relate well to the story. I give this novel a 3.8 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/. 

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

The prologue (love a good prologue!) sets a backstory for the mystery to come – the mystery part a foregone conclusion with a book titled A Baker Street Wedding. Gangly tall Laura Penobscott, with braces to correct the gap in her front teeth and nicknamed Scarecrow, makes a point of dancing with the most embarrassing boy in her class at the Winter Holiday Dance.

Skipping twenty years, author Michael Robertson begins with a death of a young woman on the moor and a wedding characterized by a flight to an undisclosed location to avoid the paparazzi. Discovered by the reporters in spite of all precautions, the couple escapes with a flight on a hidden plane piloted by the bride, none other than Laura Penobscott. Now known by her stage name of Laura Rankin, she flies to a honeymoon in a remote village where she spent a couple of her school years. Her new husband Reggie Heath is bewildered about why she has chosen this location and uneasy about her volunteering to star in the local play at the request of her old theatre teacher.

The mystery lives up to its connection to Baker Street and those who answer letters still arriving there for Sherlock Holmes, has a bit of Agatha Christie quirkiness, and ends on an O. Henry kind of note. Bits from the prologue pop up like chocolate chips in a cookie. I had not read the others in this series of Baker Street mysteries, but had no problem following the plot since it stands alone though I may go back for the rest now that I’ve had a sample. Fans of Sherlock, Agatha, or O. will enjoy this good read.

In hindsight, I probably should have unearthed the first book in the series from my TBR pile before reading A Baker Street Wedding. However, I did not. As a result, I feel that I didn’t “get” the characters in this book. They seemed shallowly drawn and the plot a bit too farcical for my tastes. And the introduction of a mysterious Sherlockian character to help solve the mystery was a bit convenient. Clearly, from the ending, this character was someone Important, but his significance wasn’t apparent to me.

Sadly, I think the premise of the series is intriguing but this didn’t seem to be as well executed as I hoped.

Thanks to NetGallery, Minotaur Books and Michael Robertson for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinon.

“A Baker Street Wedding” by Michael Robertson is book six in “The Baker Street Letters” series. It is not necessary to have read the previous books to enjoy this one, but readers of the previous books will have a deeper understanding of the quirky characters and a more global understanding of the events. New readers will enjoy the book on a different level and will probably want to pick up the previous books in the series.
“A Baker Street Wedding” begins with a flashback to twenty years previously, and readers find Laura Penobscott at a Halloween party. She had gone as the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. She puts an index finger to her temple, and says, “Oh if I only had a brain!” Everyone gets the joke, because everyone knows Laura Penobscott has a brain.
Thanks to the media’s obsession with “human interest” stories, it is widely known that today, letters written to Sherlock Holmes are delivered and read at The Baker Street Chambers. Laura Penobscott, now the famed London actress Laura Rankin, is marrying Reggie Heath, a barrister whom “The Daily Sun called “the balmy barrister of Baker Street.” On a visit to the office, Laura finds a letter, opens it, reads it, copies it, and replaces it without saying a word.
In an effort to avoid the most unscrupulous team of paparazzi in the world, the Laura and Reggie escape after the wedding in a Cessna 150, with the bride piloting and groom in the passenger seat. Upon arriving at a hide-a-way in Bodfyn, Cornwall, Laura’s childhood hometown, they find that the lead actress in the community theater production of Macbeth has had an untimely and deadly accident. The role is perfect for Laura Penobscott Rankin Heath, but questions surround the suspicious death.
The action is dialogue driven with casual conversations bringing characters to life and giving a cozy friendly feel to the small town. Readers get to know everyone well. The story flows at a casual but steady pace, and the setting reflects the everyday activities of the town’s ordinary citizens as well as the not so ordinary.
I have read the previous books in the series, and I enjoy the interesting spin Robertson puts on the folklore surrounding Sherlock Holmes and his famous Baker Street address. I received a copy of “A Baker Street Wedding” from Michael Robertson, St Martin’s Press, and NetGalley. It is a well-written book without gore or carnage, and yet one that keeps readers hooked until the end.

A wedding full of mistakes leads to a mystery that take Laura and Reggie on a detour to their honeymoon. When they get to the the town things don't add up and one thing leads to another until they are in serious danger. Only suspicious friends can save them now.

This story kept me on the edge of my seat in a fun sort of way.


** I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review**

A wonderful cozy for Sherlock fans but a little harder to love if you are not a total Sherlock nut. Story is a bit confusing if you have not read the previous books in series. Well written and a good story, just difficult to get all the way into it if you aren’t familiar with series.

Since starting this blog I have tended to look forward and tried new books rather than revisiting old favorites. For this reason you haven't seen my thoughts on the earlier titles in the Baker Street Letters series and so I feel I ought to offer a little context before sharing my thoughts on this latest entry.

The concept of the series is that a solicitor acquires an inexpensive lease on a building that comes with a catch. Because his office is 221B Baker Street he is required by the building's owners to process and issue a form response to all of the letters that members of the public send in addressed to Sherlock Holmes. It is an entertaining concept that has spawned five previous stories, many of which are charming and well plotted.

The appeal of these stories for me lies chiefly in the characterization of the two solicitor brothers, stodgy Reggie and his rather free-spirited brother Nigel. They have distinctly different outlooks on life and complement each other well when they do work on solving a case together. The pair share our attention in each of the first four titles in the series but things changed with the previous story, the excellent The Baker Street Jurors, which focused solely on Nigel. While I missed the interactions between the brothers, I felt Nigel worked pretty well solo because he is an inquisitive person who feels a sense of duty to the truth. He had, after all, been responsible for the pair's involvement in solving cases in several of the previous stories. He is a natural lead sleuth.

Reggie Heath is not.

I think the problem stems from Reggie's personality. He lacks Nigel's inquisitive nature and is a safe, conservative sort of person and so never goes looking for trouble. Instead his motivation lies in protecting Laura who he has just married at the start of this novel. This is certainly a credible piece of characterization but it also means that trouble has to come find him.

This happens after the paparazzi discover where Reggie and Laura's wedding will be taking place and the pair have to rapidly escape and find somewhere to enjoy their honeymoon. They end up in the Cornish village of Bodfyn where Laura had grown up staying in the home of her former drama teacher. She asks Laura if she will take a small role in a regional theatre production benefitting her old school building which risks being sold.

Reggie soon discovers that one of the reasons Laura decided to return to Bodfyn was that a letter had been received in his chambers requesting he bring her there. I did think it was enormously coincidental that Laura should happen to see the one letter sent to Sherlock Holmes that directly concerned her right before the wedding but I think I could have accepted it had the reason for that letter been better.

Robertson's plots are typically quite fanciful, featuring some unlikely coincidences and motivations but I think they have previously all possessed a solid internal logic. The villains have been mad, believing themselves to be linked in some way to the Holmes mythos or that Reggie was actually Sherlock Holmes, but their schemes made sense to them. The villain's reasoning in this story is unconvincing and their plan relies enormously on factors beyond their control. Even if you accept their motivation and goal, it is hard to imagine they would ever conceive of the plan they develop in this story because it leaves so much to chance.

A Baker Street Wedding feels messy, keeping the reader in the dark about Laura's motivations for wanting to get involved. This seems an odd choice because it gives the reader little sense of what the story will be about or what they are trying to solve until well into the novel.

The other significant problem is that having effectively written Nigel out of the narrative, Reggie is also sidelined for much of the second half of the novel. Instead Robertson focuses on several supporting characters who have appeared in previous installments of the series, one of whom is a rather direct Holmes pastiche. While I appreciate that character in short doses, he lacks the charm or personality of either of the brothers while his identity is kept too well hidden to ever feel like we get to know him.

It's all a bit of a shame because there are parts of this book that are very enjoyable and will satisfy long-term fans of the series. For one thing it is nice to get some more details about Laura and a sense of where she came from and several other supporting characters get similar treatment. Reggie and Laura both get some fun character moments and I appreciated that their story continues to move forward rather than being kept static between each book.

Though A Baker Street Wedding has its moments, few of them relate to the core mystery plot which I feel falls short of the standard set by previous installments. I still think that this is a very enjoyable series though and I will look forward to another volume. I just hope that when it does we will see a little more Nigel alongside his brother.

My first taste of this Sherlock cozy. I loved the free spirited Laura and her besotted husband Reggie. The beginning was a little slow but definitely picked up as the story progressed. A great mystery with a clever plot. Sig was endearing as a modern version of Sherlock Holmes and I loved the steps he took to solve the mystery and save the day. My only complaint is the ending seemed so abrupt and I felt hanging a bit. All in all a riveting mystery and fun cozy. Happy Reading!

"A Baker Street Wedding" is a cozy and fun read. It was not what I really expected, but still worth reading. I have not read the other books in the series, so I found some bits of the story confusing. I might go back and read the others, to become more acquainted with the quirky characters.

I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

When Laura, a celebrated actress, decided to wed Reggie, an attorney made fun by the tabloid press, the owner of one of the worse of the tabloids decided he needed proof that the wedding took place. Before the paparazzi he sent to invade the wedding could get the proof needed, things went terribly wrong — the groom was pushed by one of the reporters and hit the wedding cake which tumbled over like a building in a 9.5 earthquake. Things went downhill from there. The bride and groom escaped the scene with the bride flying a single-engine plane away from the wedding even though she’d not flown a plane in over sixteen years and had no license. The groom was understandably not thrilled with the turn of events, the media mogul still didn’t have the proof he needed that the woman of his dreams was wedded, and the town of Bodfyn has new visitors.

The opening pages of this mystery are more like a keystone kops film with coincidences abounding and no mystery in sight other than why Laura chose to land the plane where she did. But wait there’s more….

This is the fifth book in the series, if you were to pick this book up not knowing it was part of a series, you’d probably enjoy it more than fans of the series do. It’s just quirky enough to be interesting and is well written.

Another fun installment of the Baker Street Letters series. Sadly, no Nigel, and not as much Reggie as I would have liked, but Laura was a central character in this novel, as is Reggie's clerk, Lois. There's a wonderful "guest appearance" by one Siger, who Sherlockians will surely recognize. Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur books, for providing an eARC in return for my honest opinion.

I have not read any of the other books in this series so felt a bit lost in this one. It would have helped to know more before plunging into this somewhat quirky group of characters. Don’t get me wrong.....it’s a good book and the story line isn’t bad but it’s not a great book. It wanted to be though. Other reviewers have dropped the names Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes and I saw a tinge of each. The two lead characters get married, she disappears and the mystery develops from there. A handful of twists and turns but overall a nice cozy mystery and an interesting spin on the Sherlock mythology. I’m undecided if I’m invested enough in these characters to want to spend more time with them by reading the rest of the series but I don’t regret the time I spent reading this one.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC copy for review.

This was an interesting cozy mystery and kept my interest to see how it would all turn out. I loved the main characters in this book. Since this book is part of a series, I was a little bit lost as to what had gone on before, but I was still able to keep up with the story. I liked this author’s writing style and would be interested in reading more of his books.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.