For most people, the summer before freshman year of college is about preparation, packing, and goodbyes. Of course, Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes are not most people. While there are plenty of preparations, packings, and goodbyes to go around, they are not of the usual sort. Set in the intimidating halls of Oxford, Cavallaro graces us with one last unexpected yet completely welcome mystery. Narrated exclusively by Charlotte, fans of this series receive just a few more surprises from this dynamic duo. A dazzling and explosive conclusion, full of twists that will make you gasp, A Question of Holmes is important, most of all, in its commentary on who has the power to tell a story.Brittany Cavallaro is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels. With Emily Henry, she is the author of Hello Girls. She is also the author of the poetry collections Girl-King and Unhistorical. A recipient of a National Endowment in the Arts fellowship, Cavallaro received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her PhD in English literature from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Currently, she teaches creative writing at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. If you're interested in more of my reviews of Cavallaro's work, you can find them all here.
Homes and Watson think they're finally in the clear after graduating from Sherringford . . . but danger awaits in the hallowed halls of Oxford. Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson have a chance to start over. With all the freedom their precollege summer program provides and no one on their tail, the only mystery they need to solve, once and for all, is what they are to each other. But at Oxford, Charlotte is immediately drawn into a new case: a series of accidents befell the theater program last year, culminating in a young woman going missing. The mystery has gone unsolved. And no one -- least of all the girl's peculiar, close-knit group of friends -- is talking. When Watson and Holmes join the theater program, the "accidents" start anew, giving them no choice but to throw themselves into the case. But as the complicated lines of friendship, love, and loyalty blur, time is running out -- and tragedy awaits in the wings.
Cavallaro changes the name of the game of series writing, constantly mixing up the format of each of her books in fun and effective ways. In the last book of the Charlotte Holmes series, we pivot to narration exclusively from Charlotte Holmes, our heroine from the start. She might not have been ready to tell her story from the beginning, back when Jamie met her in Sherringford, but maybe that was the point. We were working up to the time when Charlotte could finally tell her own story, and pull the curtain closed for us. Cavallaro, through these choices in narration, makes the series more about the characters than the mysteries they're solving. It's a brilliant diverting tactic, if a reader just wants to enjoy the story at the surface. If a reader can recognize it for what it is, though, they'll find they learn so much more about themselves at the end of the story. We learn about life and relationships along with the main characters, rather than enjoying a mystery plot. It is, after all, called the Charlotte Holmes series, so it's poignant and symbolic to end up with a finale exclusively narrated by her. Jamie, in the previous books, always wanted to understand what it was like to be inside her head, see what she was thinking. We got to see that a bit in The Case for Jamie, but in A Question of Holmes, it's taken to a whole new level. It truly teaches us the importance of who is allowed to tell, has the power to tell, and who should tell specific kinds of stories.
That being said, I did quite miss Jamie during this book. Being inside Charlotte's head as she solved a murder was fascinating, because we got to see things about the case more sharply. But, that meant less time in Jamie's head, and also less time with Jamie, since Charlotte does like to do some things on her own. When I thought we were finally getting to see Jamie as a character in The Case for Jamie, I felt the loss of his character sorely in this novel. I felt like he was truly getting somewhere healthy for him, and not being able to fully chart that growth into the series finale felt like a punch to the gut. It is, of course, Charlotte's story, but having grown as attached to Jamie as I did, it was sad to have to let him go, almost, so that we could fully understand Charlotte -- which, might have been the point of the series all along.
This was a truly dazzling and explosive storyline, compared to the other mysteries. I enjoyed Charlotte's focus on her relationship with Jamie, and her trying so hard to find the healthy balance between the two. More than that, I enjoyed how often she let the case interfere with her thoughts on it, because I felt like it explained all her behaviors of the past books. The case itself was also pivotal, for Charlotte. I liked how the mystery itself was this really big thing for her, to solve it but to also help her figure out where she wanted to go in life. She was definitely just as confused about Jamie as she was about her own future, which are two really big decisions people are pressured into just knowing really fast. Charlotte was no excuse, even though she processed the decisions differently based on her background and past experiences. The case, while engaging, felt more like a plot element used to push the story along, and to help Charlotte reach the ending she deserved. It was well planned and well executed, with a few surprises of its own, which balanced well with Charlotte's reflections on what she wanted with Jamie and what she wanted for herself.
I have talked a lot about Charlotte, but not quite about Charlotte herself. In some points in the novel, despite being so incredibly different from her, I felt like I was Charlotte. This can be attributed, of course, to the first person narration, but also more to Charlotte's really specific wants, desires, and needs from a life she felt far away from. Everyone has something they want out of life, but everyone also falls under the weight of expectations -- those wants and expectations are all different, but our feelings towards each are all pretty similar. This was the camaraderie I experienced with Charlotte, and this was part of the reason I was okay with letting Jamie and his narration go. Cavallaro really gave young adult fiction this gift, a character who has her own story to tell but has to work her way up to telling it; a character we will all have related to at some point in our life; and a character we can also simultaneously always learn from. In a sense, Charlotte's character felt like magic, because through Jamie's eyes she was always the kind of person I wanted to be, but as the series developed, I saw her as the girl I used to be, the same way Charlotte also describes her earliest self. There are a lot of layers of complexity to Charlotte's character that feel almost impossible to articulate, because there's so much emotion and wit behind the conclusions. At the end of it all, though, I'm just glad to say that young adult fiction was graced with a character as complex as Charlotte. She is exactly what this genre needs, and I'm so glad Cavallaro masterfully delivered with her character.
In Cavallaro fashion, one part of the story was narrated by Jamie: the epilogue. The ending was heartbreakingly tender, only sad in that it was time to let these characters go. It was interesting to see the ending from Jamie's eyes, after having felt like I had to give him up in favor of Charlotte so she could tell all. Jamie's narration style shifted too, as if Cavallaro wanted to send readers the message that he, too, had changed, even if we didn't get to see fully how. I truly couldn't have wanted a better ending for these characters, and this series will always be one of my favorites, to be pulled out on rainy days with a cup of hot chocolate whenever I want a good mystery and some of the most dynamic characters around.
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