I got this because it’s a historical mystery and it sounded fun. Also, for a minute, I confused it with the play Gas Light because of its title. It’s totally different, though, and I only got tripped up because of the name.

The Secrets of Gaslight Lane is the fourth book in a series and it stars the eccentric Sidney Grice and his assistant/ward, March Middleton. Sidney is scrupulous about having March follow the rules of society, although he almost always breaks them whenever he opens his mouth. One day, a young woman comes to him with a case – solve the mystery of her father’s murder. This case is connected to an unsolved mystery, where all the inhabitants of the house was killed except the deceased and the butler. Sidney and March start to investigate and they find that the truth may not lead them to one murderer, but to two.

Although this was the fourth book in the series, I managed to follow the story and the characters rather easily. Sometimes, jumping into a series midway can cause confusion, but not in this case. I do wonder, however, if Sidney was always this eccentric or if he just got more exaggerated as the series went on – he’s the type of person who’s amusing the read about but would be highly annoying in real life. In fact, I think that if he were any more eccentric, I would be annoyed with his character in the book instead of thinking it was amusing.

The mystery was pretty ingenious. I definitely did not see the solution, but I was pretty convinced of it at the end. The only part that confused me while I was reading were the italicised portions, which are an insight into a murderer’s character. I don’t know if it’s because it was so short or if it was because it was unconnected to the main narrative (since it’s probably in the past? I’m still not sure which murderer is narrating) but I always felt a bit frustrated reading it. That said, they did lay some pretty good red herrings so I see their purpose; the frustration happened mainly while reading.

Overall, I enjoyed this. It’s pretty long for a mystery (almost 500 pages), but the snarkiness from the two main characters and the twist and turns of the mystery kept me entertained to the very end. If I come across another one of these books, I’d definitely be tempted to pick it up.