Amusing if horribly silly story of an upper middle class Victorian pompous ass investigator & his assistant in a tale complete with all Victorian British bigotry stereotypes tropes of others. The tropes can be a little grating but they are a good example of the class structure & way people thought. These two apparently died in the last book & then went to Egypt & the Gods there & solved a mystery for Anubis have now gone to Valhalla to wreck havoc on the Dieties there & find the stolen bowl keeping venom from Loki's face.
A classic line I agree with of one of the first materials used probably making runes
“Er,” said Wilfred, peering at the small white shapes that so interested Brynhild. “Are those bones?”Indeed, the things looked like a collection of finger bones, on which markings had been made. “Of course,” said Brynhild distractedly. “They’re runes, what else would they be made of?”
They go fumbling through the 9 worlds getting caught in favors & dilemmas at ever turn. Apparently this is a series of their mishaps

An interesting and quirky tale of Barnabas and Wilfred as they adventure their way through Norse mythology. Funny and orignal, an excellent read.

The second, fun supernatural mystery of the series

I enjoyed this book. Like in Barnabas Tew and the Case of the Missing Scarab, Columbkill Noonan tells a good, well-paced, lighter story. All the things I liked about the first book of the series, I liked about this one too. The characters are well developed and quirky. Some of the wording is very clever and worthy of re-reading. If you liked the Inspector Hobbes books by Wilkie Martin, or The Case of the Deadly Doppelganger by Lucy Banks then you will like this as well. They are all well-written supernatural series wrapped up in friendly and humorous packages. I recommend this book for those who want to read lighter fantasy.

I love Barnabas Tew, I love how the plots are developed and find them entertaining and amusing.
A very good read.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Columbkill Noonan and Netgalley for this ARC

I'm sorry to say that I couldn't read much of this book and gave up reading it quite quickly. It has many qualities, especially a beautiful,old-fashioned style with a humorous effect. But that was precisely the problem for me: I felt that the story was, since the very beginning, just a pretext to perky banter, funny misunderstanding, spectacular scenes. The style is very evocative, the scenes are easy to imagine in a cartoonish way - but that's not what I'm looking for in a book.
It's exactly for the same reason that I could never read more then the half of "Bilbo the hobbit" by Tolkien: a lively and quaint style, a hero gauche and supposedly cute, who's courageous in adversity and against mocking, but a story that fails to keep me entertained.
It was an error to choose this book, I should have read the kindle extract first...

If you like your religious pantheons all mixed together - the Egyptian afterlife is real, the Norse afterlife is real, etc. - you'll probably like this. It's the second book of two (to date) and while it's a standalone story I felt like I was missing some of the background. Start with the first one if you can.