The Sign of Four Spirits is the 9th book in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop cozy series by Vicki Delany. Due out 9th Jan 2023 by Crooked Lane books, it's 272 pages and will be available in hardback, ebook and audio formats. Paperback due out 1st quarter 2025 from the same publisher. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
One of the things that a lot of pastiche bookshop/library cozies have in common is title dropping. This series is no exception but it's fine since that's a great way to find new authors to follow up and read. It does add verisimilitude for fictional librarians and bookshop owners to be able to recommend titles to their patrons. That's a nice bonus to an otherwise engaging and fun light read. In addition, this series is good in its own right, and the author is both prolific and more than competent with the technical nuts-n-bolts of writing.
The pacing is good and the story arc is clever and readable. It's full of appealingly eccentric small town characters and the mystery puzzle is well engineered and twisty. This one can easily be read as a standalone. Suitable for all audiences, the language is clean and the violence isn't graphic or on-page.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 8 hours and 26 minutes and is capably narrated by series narrator Kim Hicks.
She has a restful, classically trained voice with rounded vowels and
careful modulation. She's easy to understand and does an unobtrusive job
of the narration. Sound and production values are high throughout.
Four stars. Cozy mystery fans of Sue Minix. Paige Shelton, and Lynn Cahoon will enjoy this series. With 9 books extant, and no indication that the series is stopping, this would be an excellent choice for a long binge or buddy read.
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