Jewel of the Thames: A Portia Adams Adventure

Jewel of the Thames is a delightful, surprising, suspenseful and smart adventure with a fierce young woman at its core. As Portia Adams journeys from the cultural backwater of Toronto to bustling 1930s London, the centre of culture and her own family history, Misri introduces her readers to a charming detective for a new generation: a plucky and open-minded observer with a kind heart and a developing analytical mind though, one who takes tea instead of pipe tobacco as she gets to the bottom of a case.

I read Jewel of the Thames as an adult. For me, it was a fun and whimsical story that picked up the legacy of Holmes while adding to it the energy and unique perspective of a young woman detective in the 1930s, in the roundly developed adventurer of Portia:

Her adorable awkwardness from being plopped into British culture with a noticeable North American accent and comportment; her devotion to analysis and investigation, even though her costume disguises are a bit ramshackle; the depth of her emotions as she moves on from a family tragedy; all these details and many more caused me to be swept away with Portia's own story as well as the intriguing details of her cases.