I am ready to kick off the New Year with more Retrenders stuff, but I had some left overs from last year, like this George Mann book of short stories – The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes, Volume 1.  Over the weekend, as I watched American playoff football in-between breaks, I was able to finally finish reading it.

I am new to the Newbury & Hobbes books and the various characters created in this universe.  I was a little weary reading these all-new short stories in this collection, wondering if I needed to read the “The Affinity Bridge”, “The Osiris Ritual” and “The Immorality Engine” to get what is going on, but I was well relieved by Mr. Mann kicking off with nice introduction chapter about his characters and his first book.  Newbury & Hobbes revolves around 3 main characters, the sleuth Sir Maurice Newbury, assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes and police friend Sir Charles Bainbridge as they solve crimes and murders in Victorian London.  The book collects 15 short stories as Newbury and Hobbes face the weird and strange crimes.  Mr. Mann also includes a helpful timeline of where these short stories took place over the course of his 3 books and a chapter of story notes on all the short stories (they include spoilers, so please read the short stories first!).

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