Mysterious Tales of Old St. Paul is a collection of three novella length historical mysteries by Larry Millett featuring fictional sleuth Shadwell Rafferty. Released 1st Oct 2024 by The University of Minnesota Press, it's 240 pages and is available in hardcover and ebook formats.

These are well written stories, tied together loosely, and featuring an unvarnished plain-spoken saloon owner and sometimes detective who has a tie-in with the author's other series (Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota). The mysteries are nicely constructed and satisfyingly resolved. It's set in the late 19th century in Minnesota, and there's a palpable sense of setting, with an adolescent American midwest vibe and rough-and-ready characters.

The main character has an occasionally annoying tendency toward internal monologues, riffing on the methodology of Sherlock Holmes; and it's a fun homage, but becomes tiresome when it's overused.

The author is clearly very very well versed with local history and there is a wonderful verisimilitude throughout the book, with the mysteries skillfully interwoven around a scaffold of actual history. It's done so skillfully it's not clear where real history shades over into fiction.

Three and a half stars. Well written. It will likely appeal to readers who enjoy Anne Perry's William Monk series and similar.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Being from Minnesota, I greatly enjoyed this collection of three novellas. This was a relatively fast and easy read for me. Thank you netgalley for sharing this book with me in exchange for my honest review.

This is a collection of three novella-length mystery tales set in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the late 19th century. The cases solved by the Irish-American bartender detective Shadwell Rafferty each have a touch of the bizarre that is reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, Rafferty’s great inspiration and role model. These tales are lightly told with some colorful and memorable turns of phrase. However, the characters lacked definition, which made it harder to tell suspects apart and connect with the first two cases. The third case was more well-rounded in this respect and was genuinely suspenseful.

historic-buildings, historical-figures, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, newspapers, private-investigators, mysteries, mystery-fiction*****

St. Paul, Minnesota, State Capital and County Seat of Ramsey County, established 1849, home to
Shadwell Rafferty, saloon owner (Shad's Place) and part-time private eye. Rafferty did meet Holmes and Watson in 1896 and they remained friends for decades.
This is the latest in the Rafferty books and contains three new short stories filled with plot twists, red herrings, and not a few snickers. The only problem is that I now have to hunt down a few of the older books because I liked this one so well.
I requested and received a free temporary (not TTS) EARC from University of Minnesota Press via NetGalley. Thank you!
#ShadwellRafferty #SherlockHolmes #StPaulMn #Mysteries

Thanks to Larry Millet, The University of Minnesota Press, and NetGalley for access to the Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The atmosphere and sense of place in this set of stories is very strong and I could envision the characters and Old St. Paul as the mysteries progressed. Real characters and buildings of real Old St. Paul are so seamlessly intertwined in the story that it would be easy to forget that this is a work of fiction.

I liked how the three stories were connected, yet independent so we could follow our favorite characters through their adventures. I also enjoyed Shadwell Rafferty as a detective and his interactions with the various citizens, good and bad, of old St. Paul.

These stories are always a joy to read. You really can feel the sense of time and place and the stories are well set within the world created here. They are cleverly plotted, inviting the reader to enjoy the journey as we look for the clues.