I really enjoyed this book and it was a quick read. I look forward to reading more of these characters in the future. I think they will develop really well. Thanks to NetGalley for the copy in exchange for my honest review. ( )

I’ve been a fan of Tuttle’s fiction for many years – her collection, A Spaceship Built of Stone, is especially good – but, to be honest, this book, the first in the Jesperson and Lane series, about a pair of late Victorian/Early Edwardian paranormal investigators, did initially smell like an attempt at something explicitly commercial. No bad thing, of course; every writer wants to be successful, and it’s even harder these days than, say, twenty years ago. The Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief is very readable; and the characters are engaging, and even amusing in a sort of Holmesian-pastiche sort of way… It’s also clear Tuttle had a great deal of fun writing it, which means it is also fun reading it. Lane is a debunker of spiritualists who falls out with the woman she assists and returns to London, only to stumble across an advert for a detective’s assistant by Sherlock-Holmes-wannabe Jesperson. Except he isn’t really a Sherlock-Holmes-wannabe, he’s more a character inspired by Holmes, who is real in the story’s world, which presents something of a dissonance. Jesperson’s and Lane’s first case involves the disappearance of several prominent spiritualists, and though the pair soon identify the perpetrator, they’re not sure of his methods or aims. The Somnambulist & the Psychic Thief was good on period detail, and the main characters were definitely engaging, but elements of it did feel occasionally secondhand. I bought this book when it was on offer; I’d do the same for the sequel. ( )

Most of the story is contained in the title. Miss Lane has been a companion to a psychic until she discovers that the psychic is a fraud. On a moments whim she goes for a job as a private detective with Mr Jasper Jesperson and also finds somewhere to live with him and his mother. Money is getting tight until a wife comes looking for help with her somnambulist husband and this lead them into a mystery about missing mediums. During the investigation they find out more about each other and about the things that can go wrong.

Interesting story and the two characters work well together. The mother is a character in her own right and you can see how resilient she is. There was a bit of handwavium about his skills but overall it was an interesting read. ( )

This is a bit hard to categorise; at first sight it’s a straightforward historical occupying the same space as The Prestige (as per the film), but is more urban fantasy as the psychic powers are genuine and play an important part of the storyline.

Another piece of Sherlockiana - Miss Aphrodite Lane breaks from the Society of Psychical Research on discovering that her partner was willing to resort to trickery, and ends up taking a position with Mr Jasper Jesperson (along with lodgings - chaperoned by his mother). He is planning to make a career as a detective.

However, cases are few and far between until they discover their landlord has a problem and that psychics are disappearing across London.

Recommended.

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2018/10/201865-somnambulist-and-psychic-thief.htm... ( )