Will Thomas, Some Danger Involved & sequels

Another recommendation for those who enjoy Victorian mysteries - Will Thomas's Barker & Llewelyn series, which starts with Some Danger Involved and continues, in order:

To Kingdom Come
The Limehouse text
The Hellfire Conspiracy

These really are something special - plenty of action, great mentor/student relationship, lots of period knowledge, humour and warmth in the writing. There's also the courage to stray off the "cozy" approach to Victorian London and go to the areas literary tourists often miss - the Jewish community, the Irish Question, the Chinese community in Limehouse. Give these a go and be enlightened as well as entertained!

And there's a new one coming soon, The Black Hand - I can't wait!

I have to agree! I stumbled on Some Danger Involved last fall while looking for something a little different in a mystery and have eagerly read all the books in the series. I can't wait for the next one and find myself always looking for it when I'm in the bookstore.

Enjoyed THE BLACK HAND, though I must say the "twist" depended on the villain behaving, not like a normal human being, but like a character from a book. When you find out what s/he did, your first reaction will be, "But why go to all that trouble when s/he could have just wasted Barker and Llewelyn and solved their problem that way?"

In that sense, it was disappointing - but in terms of the wit, character development and general charm, it was a more than worthy read.

Were the sequels "better" than the first one. I have to admit that I started reading the first one and didn't get drawn into. Some series improve as they go along though. May be this is one of them?

Well, if you're willing to work out of sequence, I would recommend either The Limehouse Text or The Hellfire Conspiracy - the action-packed Limehouse was my first introduction to the series, and Hellfire COMPLETELY suckered me!

I agree with bibliotheque, Limehouse and Hellfire Conspiracy were both very good, and I believe a little more enjoyable than Some Danger Involved since so much time didn't have to be spent on initial background for the characters. I personally didn't enjoy The Black Hand as much as the others but overall I think it a great series.

I happened to start with The Hellfire Conspiracy and happily have gone back to Some Danger Involved and am tearing through the series now! So far I LOVE it! I love Llewelyn as a narrator. He seems so calm and controlled when describing all sorts of tough and harrowing things. Love Barker's unusual past and abilities. The series has jumped into my favorite Victorian mysteries slot.

Edited to add:
I just finished To Kingdom Come and The Limehouse Text and really enjoyed them both. These bks are just a lot of fun to read... well-paced, interesting, great characters, great situations and settings, full of action and adventure and all centered around a nice mystery (or more suspense and a little mystery regarding To Kingdom Come).

I'm on to the latest book, The Black Hand next...

I will be sorry to run out of these books... I've been searching around for more fun historical series... Any suggestions? Doesn't have to be Victorian...

I've read only Some Danger Involved. It was enjoyable, but I wasn't as enthusiastic about it as some other readers. It was recommended to me as being "Holmesian," and I'm a Sherlock Holmes nut, so I was expecting a closer tie into that tradition than the book delivered.

I saw one of these in the library the other day but didn't take it out (I had my arms full at the time, and it wasn't the first of the series) but I marked it on my list to check it out another time. Glad to know the series is so good. I love finding new historical mysteries! Thanks, biblioteque!

I read Some Danger Involved when it first came out and really enjoyed it. Was looking forward to the series continuing, but could not get into To Kingdom Come and stopped about a third of the way through. I still really liked Llewellyn, but found Barker kind of irritating.

I have a copy of Hellfire Conspiracy that a friend gave me after hearing I liked Some Danger, so will give it a try one day.