Jeri Westerson, author of the Crispin Guest series as well as the new King’s Fool one, takes a different direction with The Isolated Seance, “An Irregular Detective Mystery”. Remember Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street irregulars, the street urchins who ran errands and spied for him? What do they do when they outgrow that stage? In the case of Timothy Badger, he decides to become a consulting detective like his mentor. In fact, Timothy has his own Watson, Benjamin Watson, a Black man who has turned his hand to a little of everything.

Badger and Watson are barely keeping their business together by 1895. They do have a potential new client, a valet named Thomas Brent. Brent’s boss, Horace Quinn, had been looking for something left behind by his deceased business partner. Hoping to find an answer, he held a seance. Brent was required to attend, along with Quinn’s housekeeper, maid, and the medium. But, partway through the seance, the oil lamp went out. By the time Brent was able to find a light, Horace Quinn was dead with a knife in his chest. Now, Thomas Brent is a suspect, on the run from the police. He hopes Badger and Watson can find the actual killer.

Badger and Watson take turns narrating the story. It’s Watson who watches Badger bumble his way through the case, and sees him caught up in the wiles of a reporter for The Daily Chronicle, Miss Ellsie Littleton. Watson can only commiserate with his friend when Badger reveals too much of his past to the attractive woman. Watson admits that Badger tries, and he does manager to stumble upon a clue now and then.

What would Badger and Watson do without Sherlock Holmes, though? He bails Badger out of jail, sets them up in a new place to live, and even sent them the Brent case. It takes a while for Badger to realize that Holmes has sent him clues throughout the case.

Westerson’s pastiche is enjoyable, although nothing lives up to Doyle’s treatment of “The Great Detective”. Westerson’s characters? Badger certainly couldn’t make it as a consulting detective without his mentor and his partner. Benjamin Watson is much smarter than Badger, but how many clients would hire a Black detective in Victorian London? And, I have the feeling Miss Littleton will be trailing the detectives for many cases in the future.

There’s mystery, a little comedy, and Westerson’s always informative Afterword. The Isolated Seance is an enjoyable pastiche for fans of Sherlock Holmes.

A fun take on the Sherlock Holmes stories, featuring Tim Badger and apprentice of Holmes who is trying to become a detective in his own right. The plot of this mystery itself was great and a fun read, although I don't think this was fully accurate to Victorian England and there was a lot of overuse of slang making some characters seem slightly like caricatures. However this is a well written interested book which I can see making a good series, with strong characters, I'd like to learn more about their pasts and see the main characters develop as well.

A new series set in London at the end of Queen Victoria's reign and introducing a charming (but often clueless) duo of budding young sleuths: Tim Badger and Ben Watson.

Tim is a protégé of Sherlock Holmes and dreams to soon become a full fledged detective and be able to open a business with his sidekick and friend, Ben.

But finding potential clients may prove to be a very unwelcomed struggle at the beginning until they stumble upon a weird case that involves a séance, a vicious murder, dangerous Irish gypsies and a treasure trove full of lies and deceit...

This is a pilot. So one must be indulgent. I found the plot very disjointed and often boring. As if the author wasn't sure how to proceed with its structure. The language didn't really feel late Victorian and too many Americanisms marred the dialogues, and last but not least, some of the characters are too fatuous
(i.e the annoying female reporter) and not developed sufficiently.

Jerry Westerson is a gifted storyteller and a delightful wordsmith so I will give him the benefit of the doubt with the first title in his new series. Hopefully the next addition in the series will turn out less awkward...

Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this intriguing ARC....

I'm a huge fan of the Sherlockian, so is intrigued by the premise here. I've often thought the Baker Street a regulars deserved more attention, so eagerly Dove in. Unfortunately, this one wasn't for me.. perhaps if I was less familiar with Holmes's world I would have found it more interesting, but the feel of it just never rang true from the very opening pages for me. It didn't feel like Victorian England. It didn't feel like Holmes's world. And the Irregulars didn't get half the respect I feel they deserve - being presented as much less savvy and clever than they would have had to be to have survived to adulthood in the world they inhabited. The writing and dialogue felt forced and didn't engage or hold my attention either, I'm afraid. This one wasn't for me...

Being a Sherlock Holmes fan this book appealed to me. I am aware of other books that have taken dire lliberties with Holmes and thankfully not read them. although some modern writers who have tried to be faithful to Holmes have done a very good job.This book was extremely hard to read due to the number of errors. We are talking about Victorian Britain. We did not, do not have drapes, we have curtains for example. We are given a somewhat patronising glossary at the beginning of the book, possibly to assist American readers but then there are words that are not included, rozzers for example. American spellings used throughout grated enormously. Color/labor/gray/mustache to name a few misspellings also grammatical errors. The sentence structure was very odd. and phrases used somewhat peculiar. Blimey/innit were overused and made the characters sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Geographical errors too. Suffocation would have been noted by a competent physician and very unlikely to have gone undetected..
Not for me I'm afraid

Like many a reader, I fell in love with the Sherlock Holmes stories in my early teens and have remained a fan ever since. I can happily reread the original stories, but I also like discovering new riffs on Holmes. The Isolated Séance is a new entry in the riff category, the first volume in a series featuring one of Holmes' Baker Street Irregulars and a friend who have decided to become private detectives themselves.

The Baker Street Irregular, now in his early 20s, is Tim Badger, who raised himself on the streets of London after his mother's disappearance. He's devoted to Holmes' process of deduction, but prone to acting on a whim and coming to conclusions without full information. Badger's partner is Ben Watson, a young Black man who has held a number of different jobs, his favorite being working as a chemist's assistant. The reader is given less information about this Watson than about Badger. Who are his parents? Are they still living? What has led him to his many different types of employment? How did he and Badger meet?

At the novel's start, Badger and Watson share an apartment in an unsalubrious London neighborhood, and have had little opportunity to work as the private detectives they hope to become. They're approached by a Thomas Brent, a servant whose master, a Mr. Quinn, was murdered during a seance. The room went dark, a strange mist appeared, and when the room's lamp was relighted, Quinn was found with a letter opener sticking out from his chest. Now Brent is accused of the murder and wants his name cleared.

Brent has come to Badger and Watson as a second choice. He first approached Holmes, who was too busy to take on an addition case, but who recommended Brent try this pair of young detectives. Brent is disheveled from being on the run, but Badger and Watson appear to be in no better state. Nonetheless, Brent hires the two, giving them his four remaining ha'pennies and Badger and Watson do solve the mystery—that's the way the genre works.

I have two complaints regarding The Isolated Séance. First, Badger and Watson tell those they approach that they are working in cooperation with the police, which seems like a claim that could get them in a great deal of trouble, but doesn't. I can, however, embrace their successes through my own willing suspension of disbelief. My second complaint regards the lack of correct identification of asphyxiation as evidenced (or as it should have been evidenced) by petechial haemorrhaging. I'm being a fuss budget, but there you have it: I expect mystery novels to reflect the scientific knowledge of the time in which they're set.

All in all, though, I have to say that I enjoyed The Isolated Séance a great deal. I'm curious to learn more about Badger and (particularly) Watson and to observe the development of their relationship with Holmes. These are characters I would willingly spend more time with.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Net Galley; the opinions are my own.

tl;dr
A well-paced Victorian mystery that pays faithful homage to the Sherlock Holmes canon while introducing new characters. The young leads still have a lot to learn, leaving some of the solutions to feel more like luck than skill.

Thoughts
The author's notes briefly touch on the myriad Sherlock Holmes spinoffs that introduce new family members, include robot dinosaurs, or have him wake up in the 22nd century. To my pride/shame, I have seen all of those adaptations. And I am as surprised as the author that so few of them touch on the beloved Baker Street Irregulars (For completeness' sake, I will note I've seen the short-lived Netflix series "The Irregulars," but that one leaned very hard into supernatural elements and less into crime solving). And so I was delighted to see the start of a new series featuring Timothy Badger, a former irregular who was inspired to follow in Holmes' footsteps and become a private detective. His partner in crime solving is Benjamin Watson (no relation), a brilliant young man with a varied work history and the skills to show for it. Holmes believes in them enough that he's decided to sponsor them, and he's even sent them their first case - a complicated problem involving a man murdered in the dark of a seance.

This first book reads a lot like a pilot episode. The mystery is a tight one with a clean solution. Clues and reveals lead to more clues and reveals, with each piece fitting into the others very nicely. Our two leads still have the proverbial training wheels on, though. Holmes has to give them a hint more than once, and more reveals come from listening at the right time rather than the art of deduction. A few brief discussions about the racism, classism, and sexism common to this era don't come to any particular conclusion. The inclusion of a somewhat grating reporter (who's set up to maybe become a friend eventually) is also a point of frustration. The pilot-like feel of this book makes it a hard one to review on its own. There's a very purposeful "more to come" ending (despite it not being a cliffhanger), that makes this reader feel very dissatisfied. But it seems to be working, since I will definitely be tuning in for the next installment.