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.
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