Title: Where All Paths Meet
Series: The Adventures of Holloway Holmes: Book Three
Author: Gregory Ashe
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 348 Pages
Category: Mystery
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: The Adventures of Holloway Holmes is a superb mystery series that pays homage to one of the greatest fictional detectives ever conceived, but does so in a thoroughly modern and original way.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Holmeses. Moriartys. Adlers. What’s a Watson to do?
When Jack Moreno receives an anonymous invitation to the Zodiac anniversary gala, he’s inclined to ignore it. His best friend (and more), Holloway Holmes, vanished from his life five months ago, and Jack has no desire to bump into Holloway’s terrifying father, Blackfriar. But included with the invitation is an offer Jack can’t refuse: the promise that he’ll learn what really happened to his mother.
At the gala, an anonymous text sends Jack on a collision course with an amateur thief and, more importantly, with Holmes. Together, they must race to recover what the thief has stolen—information not only about Jack’s mom, but about the Holmes family. Information that could bring down Blackfriar’s empire.
By the time they reach the thief, though, she’s dead, and the stolen information is missing. To recover it, Jack and Holmes will have to learn who killed her. But other people, powerful people, are searching for the information too, and someone has already tried to kill Jack once. He’ll need luck and quick thinking to stay alive. And, of course, he needs Holloway Holmes.
Review: Jack Moreno and Holloway Holmes could never be accused of taking the path of least resistance. If there is trouble to be found, they will find it. And, in some cases, if there’s none to be found, they will make it. It’s not that they choose chaos; it’s more that chaos finds them where the paths of their ancestors once met. A Holmes and a Watson finding each other through the years is foretold; they are meant to be; it’s their destiny, but there’s some unresolved tension between Jack and H after Holmes disappeared five months ago, leaving Jack hurt and heartbroken. Watching it brought to bear was some sweet, sweet angst.
The bad actors in this series are forever misdirecting and playing mind-games while Holmes and Jack plan their next moves. Sometimes at odds. Sometimes it’s a contest of wills rather than skills, and the rules change at the whims and wickedness and psychopathy of those orchestrating the desired outcomes. Jack and H follow clues that lead them to dead ends . . . or simply to the dead. They find evidence that leaves them with more questions than answers. They uncover truths that, in their magnitude, offer more pain than closure. But in the end, they find their way not only to each other but to something like redemption, which, if you’ve ever read him, is classic Gregory Ashe.
“I reached out and he found my hand again, instantly, in the dark.
Always. He would always find me, I thought. Even in the dark.”
Family and the family dynamic play a significant role in all its dysfunctional and struggling definitions—once again, classic Ashe. Darkness is an ever-present theme in this book, not always in the literal absence of light but in the absolute presence of the cruelty, apathy, and abuse Holloway suffers at the hands of his parents and, to an extent, even his sister. There is a calculated and calculating method to the madness of the villains in Where All Paths Meet, and a bit of madness to the methods Jack and Holmes use to solve the case of a dead women, a missing safe meant for Jack, as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding the accident that killed Jack’s mom and left his dad with lingering injuries. When a pattern begins to emerge, it spurs Jack and Holloway on and brings about a day of reckoning for the Holmses, the Moriartys, the Adlers, and the Watsons.
Things may have begun with the search for a killer and ended with the search for a killer, but somewhere in the midst of it all, Jack and Holloway found something more—each other. The Adventures of Holloway Holmes is a superb mystery series that pays homage to one of the greatest fictional detectives ever conceived, but does so in a thoroughly modern and original way.
You can buy Where All Paths Meet here:
You can read more about Jack and Holloway in The Case Book of Holloway Holmes