Witty and disarming, Sherry Thomas' Charlotte Holmes continues to enchant readers with her stone cold logic and insatiable curiously. A strong cast of secondary characters and inventive story lines only serves to help this series push beyond it's boundaries. Fans will also heave a sigh of relief as a long running story line soon begins to bear fruit.

When Charlotte's friend is accused of murder after being found in a locked room with two dead bodies., Charlotte leads the charge to find the real killer. But as her investigation deepens, she soon learns that some secrets aren't meant for the light of day.

Murder on Cold Street is a delightful addition to Lady Sherlock series. If you are a fan of historical mystery, it is time to pick up the first installment of this series. Readers will be rewarded with a perceptive kick-ass heroine accompanied by a lovely cast, and the most agonizing slow-burn romance.

Inspector Treadles has been accuse of a murder. The book will explore his relationship with his wife Alice as Charlotte Holmes and co. unravel the truth behind these gruesome murders.

I am one of the minority that did not really care for the “The Art of Theft.” The previous book personally did not deliver any romance endorphins. I was also not keen on the heist plot either. However, rest assured, Murder on Cold Street delivered what I was looking for. This is certainly an upgrade.

Murder on Cold Street is likethat filler episode in an Anime that was not in the Manga. It was good but not in the same caliber as the first three books, which has been my standard of goodness. However, do not be deterred because while I was not satisfied with the plot, I love everything about the romance development.

Lord Ingram has finally decided he is ready to bare it all for Charlotte Holmes. Whatever The Art of Theft lacks, Murder on Cold Street delivers. Charlotte is not afraid to gratify her own physical pleasure but is she ready to accept what her senses has been telling her? Bonus content: flashback memories of teenage Charlotte and Ash. I cannot articulate how this book made me feel giddy so let me leave you one of my favorite quotes:

The first time Charlotte Holmes had kissed Lord Ingram, she’d been thirteen and he fifteen—and she’d blackmailed him into it by threatening to lure a horde of unruly children to the ruins of a Roman villa that he had been in the middle of excavating.

She remembered very little of the kiss itself. For a girl who possessed near-perfect recall, that had been a grand anomaly, as if for the duration of the kiss, her brain had suffered some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure.


Overall, the strongest point of Lady Sherlock series is the romance followed by the engaging and well-developed cast. The detective-fiction part comes third. If you have your own priorities in order, you would like to add these books in your TBR. As always, Kate Reading, the narrator of the audiobook, is a marvelous storyteller.

Review also posted at Hollywood News Source.

I liked the mystery a lot in this book. Unfortunately, the lack of romance growth in terms of Charlotte's relationship was disappointing. It feels like the author is just playing with our emotions at the moment.

Lady Sherlock Strikes again. The lady Sherlock series has to be one of my favourite historical mystery series. The characters are well fleshed out, the mysteries are engaging, and the setting is exemplary. You feel like your there along side Charlotte. Oomph and the romance Ms. Thomas has definitely given us a treat in Murder on Cold Street. Overall, Murder on Cold Street is an outstanding addition to the Lady Sherlock Series and cannot wait to read about more of the escapades Sherlock and Co. face

Stevie‘s review of Murder on Cold Street (Lady Sherlock, Book 5) by Sherry Thomas
Historical Mystery published by Berkley 06 Oct 20

The adventures of Charlotte Holmes, her companion Mrs Watson, and their various friends and relations have proven consistently delightful over the course of the series so far. After the previous two cases took us out of London and across the English Channel most recently, this time we’re back in the Capital for a locked-room mystery. Chief suspect in this case of double murder is none other than the long-time associate of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and of Charlotte’s old friend (and sometime lover) Lord Ingram: Inspector Treadles. Not only does the Inspector have connections to both victims by way of the company his wife recently inherited, but he was found in said locked room with them, holding the gun that killed them – his service revolver. Things look bleak, but fortunately Charlotte is only too happy to take on the case, even though Treadles is being less than cooperative in offering an explanation for his behaviour.


Of course everyone involved in the mystery has secrets that they would rather not share with Charlotte, and most are also hiding truths from their spouses and families. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s estranged parents are making life difficult for the one Holmes sister still residing with them, while she is mourning the apparent ending of her relationship with one of Charlotte’s previously close associates. On the positive side, Charlotte’s relationship with Lord Ingram is developing favourably, since he is soon to be freed from his estranged wife, and there are several happy interludes between the pair, in between a lot of investigation into the movements and motivations of all the potential suspects.

Marriages – unhappy ones in particular – feature prominently in this story. Treadles has been attempting to repair the rift that developed with his wife when she took control of her family’s manufacturing business, but this renewed happiness has been placed in jeopardy not only by his arrest, but also by Mrs Treadles’ subsequent discovery that her husband has been less than truthful as to his actions and whereabouts over the preceding weeks.

Charlotte soon realises that all is not right at the factories, and it seems likely that this is what the Inspector was investigating away from his regular police work. Fortunately, she has all her usual companions to call upon to track down every potential witness and suspect, an almighty task given that the murders took place while a party was taking place in the next house, with several of those present having access to both properties. Newspaper ads and coded messages played a large part in the story, to my delight, and I was greatly taken with the varied and diverse cast of new characters that we got to meet this time around. I greatly enjoyed the descriptions of Charlotte’s various costumes, the interiors of the houses she visited, and the hot-water bottle covers she was making.

All in all, a particularly excellent addition to the series and I very much hope it continues for as long as there are new adventures for the characters to embark upon.

Grade: A

Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock series gets better and better as we learn more about the main characters and the battle with Moriarty continues.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I am a huge fan of the Lady Sherlock series, and this latest installment, MURDER ON COLD STREET, was an excellent continuation.

Inspector Treadles has been found at a murder scene, murder weapon in hand. He chooses to remain silent upon his arrest, giving no explanation for his presence. Mrs. Treadles enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes (aka Charlotte) to free her husband. The case is a bit of a jumble - lots of people entering and exiting the scene, several potential motives, a few red herrings. Charlotte follows the clues, with the help of some brain-powering reticule cake, to find the sinister truth.

I love Charlotte. I love her unapologetic adoration for sweets. I love that her vanity occasionally forces her to eat a Brussels sprout or two before indulging in dessert. I love that she is brilliantly abnormal. I love that she has surrounded herself with people who understand her and believe in her. In this fifth novel, we definitely see more of the confidence her associates have in her abilities. There's little doubt in any of their minds that Charlotte can figure it out in time to save Inspector Treadles.

In MURDER, we also get to see Charlotte become more playful. It's almost as though she's settled into herself. No longer does she need to worry about maintaining her freedom and her livelihood. Instead, she can focus on her friends, chosen family, and her love. Which brings me to the best part of MURDER: Ash and Charlotte declaring their love (in their own ways) to each other. They've been circling each other since the first novel. Ash has refused to engage in Charlotte's longed-for affair because of staid, patriarchal principles. After recent events showed him how short the good parts of life can be, he has thrown caution to the wind and embraced his love and desire for Charlotte. I can't WAIT for the next book.

Was MURDER ON COLD STREET perfect? Probably not, but I love the characters so much that I can't help but give this five icing-covered stars.

4 out of 5 stars - I'll tell you to read it, if you ask me

I really enjoyed reading this book about Charlotte Holmes. This is the first book in the series that I have read, but it is book #5 in the Lady Sherlock series. I look forward to going back to read more about how we got to the current state of things.

Charlotte Holmes claims to be Sherlock's sister, but in reality there is no Sherlock to speak of. She works "on his behalf, as he is an invalid", mainly because she knows most would not work with a woman detective.

In this story, Charlotte is faced with helping her friend, Inspector Treadles, to determine who killed the 2 men with whom he had locked himself in a room. The men worked with his wife, who had recently taken over managing the family business.

The story had several twists and turns, and I really enjoyed the side jaunts that you thought might lead somewhere, but weren't the answer!

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for this Advanced Reader's Copy.

First: I read an ARC, and I don't expect perfection and precision of editing, but there were an awful lot of instances where one letter was substituted to create a different (confusing) word, or a letter was missing from the word.

I have found the previous four Lady Sherlock books to contain mysteries that were almost unbearably convoluted, so I was relieved to find that Murder on Cold Street was a little easier to follow. Did I wish that Inspector Treadles had actually cooperated with the investigation? Did I wish that we had uncovered some of the reasons behind the murder a little earlier? Yes to both. I also wondered if Inspector Brighton was a dropped thread, because he seemed like he would initially impede Charlotte's investigation only to completely drop out of the narrative.

But what keeps me coming back to Thomas's series is the characters, so I was pleased with what we got on that front. Charlotte and Lord Ingram seem to be disembarking their UST train! Poor Livia is breaking my heart. Mrs. Watson remains the best.

I enjoyed this story when I read it a month ago, and absolutely loved it in audio. My full length audio review will be posted after it appears at AudioGals later this month.

With each book I read in Sherry Thomas' Lady Sherlock series, the more I fall in love with it. In Murder On Cold Street, we are treated to a somewhat insular mystery as it involves many characters we were introduced to in previous books. The few characters we are introduced to, including Miss Longstead and the further development of Mrs. Treadles, are worthy of future cameos.

The close to home nature of the mystery works as it also doubles as a holiday book. The progression of Charlotte and Lord Ingram is enough to satisfy and yet not feel out of character for either. Best of all for me, it ended with things on the horizon but our reasonably characters content and happy.

Charlotte Holmes (in her guise of Sherlock Holmes) is hired by Mrs. Treadles to help unmask the murderer of two men. Her husband, Inspector Treadles of Scotland Yard, has been arrested for the murders, having been found in a locked room, with the bodies, and a gun. Lord Ingram, in love with Charlotte Holmes, assists her as she begins her investigation. As she looks into the murders, many secrets emerge about the two men and the people within their sphere, many of whom are less than truthful in talking to Holmes. As the investigation widens, Holmes helps Mrs. Treadles find her strength and protects the secrets that are spilled. Another entertaining read in this series.

I’ve been putting off writing this review for almost two weeks now. This is the first Sherry Thomas book that I haven’t given five stars to, and it actually pains me a little.

For anyone who absolutely adores an author, like, truly thinks they’re a master of their craft and has all the confidence in the world that their work will stand the test of time, and then you read something from them you don’t love, you know how I feel right now.

I did not love this installment of the Lady Sherlock series. Seeing as how this is my favorite ongoing series, these three stars are a pretty big disappointment.

A lot of other readers criticized the first book in this series as being too slow. In fact, that’s the chief complaint I’ve seen of any installment. I have never felt that way about any of these books. I have a long attention span and am a self-confessed history nerd, so where some people were put off by the minutiae of 19th century London, I was drawn in by it.

This book was too slow, even for me.

There’s no easy way to say it: the pacing is damn near glacial. Every microscopic aspect of the case is examined in frustratingly close detail. Even ones that felt extraneous or unimportant. Even ones that were extraneous or unimportant.

All of the witnesses are lying, so they’re interviewed, interrogated, and then interviewed again, dragged toward the truth haltingly by Holmes and her companions.

I think part of the issue is the person that Holmes is trying to prove innocent is a completely unsympathetic side character. I was sort of glad to see him moldering in a jail cell.

There is also very little movement on any of the overarching plots within the book. The two love affairs I most looked forward to reading about felt stagnated. The big bad villain of the previous books was barely mentioned until the very end, and even then, it felt a bit rushed. And the fate of a rather important side character who fell into peril in the last book is totally excluded.

Where is he? How is he?

All in all, this felt like a layover.

Like a pause in the story of Charlotte Holmes and her companions. And I think that has something to do with the momentum built in the previous installments. In those, you know the characters are drawing closer and closer to something dangerous. Something that not even Charlotte’s genius might see them safely through.

There was action, danger. Several times throughout I read at breakneck speed, terrified that something was about to happen to one of my beloved characters.

This book fell flat compared to them. Between the slow pacing and the utter lack of any sort of tension, I was bored while reading most of it.

One last thing I need to mention is that the ARC we received of this was not in great shape, editing wise. Whole paragraphs were incorrectly italicized. Words were missing. Shifts in perspective weren’t properly marked.

I’m chalking it up to Covid. I’ve seen more of these issues from big publishing houses in the past few months than ever before, and I really hope they’re fixed in the finished copies.

So, no, I didn’t love this book. But I still love Sherry Thomas. I still believe in her wholeheartedly, and I am still going to be desperate for the next book in the series to be released.

I'm still working through this one, I love the concept, but just think that I need to be in the right mindset. It isn't pulling me in and I'm halfway through. It could be that it just seems a little on the long side for me. I'm definitely going to pick it back up soon, but didn't want to not say that this is how I am currently feeling. I will reupdate this and post my review on other platforms if/when I end up finishing it!

4.5/5

I am so in love with the Lady Sherlock series, I can't possibly express my feelings for it no matter what I say. I had high hopes for Murder on Cold Street and once again, Sherry Thomas delivered with just the story I was expecting.

If you want my opinion on these characters, please check out my previous reviews. I don't want to be too repetitive so I won't dwell on the characterizations but know that Sherry Thomas is a master at what she does. With every book, I fall further and further in love with Charlotte and every facet of her personality. Though she remained whip-smart and quirky, we also begin to see her try to understand her emotional side more. Lord Ingram, my fictional husband, also continued to be the steadfast support that Charlotte needed not only in her investigations but also her life in general. Charlotte's relationship with a certain beau that has a strong foundation in their friendship continued to be the highlight of this series for me. In Murder on Cold Street, we finally (FINALLY!) see some progress in the relationship. They have been dancing around each other for 4 books now and I think Murder On Cold Street took that relationship one step further. When I say that I want to fangirl scream whenever the two even share a touch or a gaze, I'm not even exaggerating - I just love them so much. This has quite possibly been one of the most deliciously torturous ship, but it has been truly worth the patience for me. Only Sherry Thomas could have gotten me this invested in this relationship.

Moving on from the romance ... I've enjoyed all the mysteries in this series, but the one in Murder On Cold Street is my favorite so far. The case had Charlotte and her friends working together to help Inspector Treadles, who has been accused of murder. It was my favorite case for two reasons 1) readers were presented with the opportunity to learn about Inspector Treadles and his life and 2) the locked room case was one full of unexpected, but cleverly crafted twists. I am in constantly in awe of Sherry Thomas' mind and in this one, my face throughout the entire book closely resembled the mind-blown emoji: 🤯! I was also pleasantly surprised by the character of Mrs. Treadles, Inspector Treadles' wife, who proved to be a fascinating character with her own strengths and secrets to rival those of Charlotte. We see terrific growth from her and I hope we do see her again down the line.

While each book does feature its own mystery, there's an overarching plotline that involves Moriarty. Therefore, I don't recommend reading these books out of order. Plus, readers will certainly miss out on some impressive character and relationship development. Murder on Cold Street ended on an exciting note for me, and I'm eager to see where the Moriarty storyline is heading. Knowing Sherry Thomas, it's bound to be mind-blowing and I can't wait.

Fifth in this excellent series and the best yet!

The arc of this storyline is that Sherlock was actually a woman: extremely intelligent, observant, and brilliantly analytical. The crimes are confounding, and the humor is always just at the right moment.

The mystery in this latest story seems insurmountable, and it does turn out to be quite complicated. But the continuing development of the major themes, the continuing characters and relationships between them, and the new characters introduced make reading the entire series, in order, QUITE worth the reader's time.

If you haven't begun this Lady Sherlock series, you must.
If you haven't read this fifth and latest episode of Charlotte, you MUST!
(just published Oct 6, 2020)

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the pleasure of an advance read!

An excellent addition to the Lady Sherlock series. I love all of the character development, and as always, the story was engaging and interesting. I listened to this on audio, as I have with all the others, and it was excellently narrated by Kate Reading. My one note is that this story suffers a little bit from character bloat; it got a little difficult to keep people straight near the end.

Still, it was a delightful read!

Disclaimer: I got this from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review!

Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Enola Holmes!

Are you a fan of female detectives? Yes, then this is perfect!

Murder on Cold Street is the fifth book in the Lady Sherlock mystery series. This time Inspector Treadles has been arrested for murder and his wife has asked Sherlock to investigate and clear her husband’s name.

This newest book by Sherry Thomas is well-written and it has an intriguing plot that is well-designed. There are a variety of characters, some of which are quite dislikable. It is an admirable addition to the series. However, there were some things that detracted from my enjoyment of the book. While I’ve always liked the relationship and chemistry between Charlotte and Lord Ingram, this time it was a bit more than I felt was necessary. The nearly constant reference to her attraction to him became stale, as did the constant reminder that Charlotte is a unique personality that is difficult to understand or appreciate. The added storyline about Charlotte’s sister, Olivia, and their mother felt a bit random, even though I could see why this topic was pursued. And, it’s clear to me that this series is most enjoyable when all the books are read in the order they are written.

All in all, I enjoyed Murder on Cold Street, even though I sometimes felt a bit adrift.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Lady Sherlock continues to surprise! Picking up very shortly after the events of the last book, Charlotte and company are pulled in to save Inspector Treadles from a murder he says he did not commit. All facts though point otherwise. With twists and turns, Charlotte deduces why the events that happened, happened, all while navigating the changing relationship with Lord Ingram.

Another quick adventure that kept me turning pages (seriously, at one point I was like "can't stop. Must reach end of this explanation." As a fan of the Lady Sherlock series this entry was another fun read that I couldn't put down and kept me guessing until the end. I adore Charlotte and company and can't wait to see what happens next.

I do hope that Charlotte and friends get to have a nice quiet holiday! Charlotte hardly slept in this book!