Law & Order meets Sherlock Holmes in a sketchy alley, they get into a bit of a scuffle, and they leave again looking bruised, battered, and worse for the wear.

Oh, and James Bond was there too.

I have a problem where I'm in the middle of a series and keep having to wait for books from the library, so I read these little one-off fluff books while I'm waiting. This one had a better story than the last one, but it was written so poorly.

As far as mysteries go, the plot actually wasn't half bad. You have a young lawyer who had to serve as detective to save a man from execution after he loses the defense case. It's a respectable premise and, as the main plot line, carried the story through to a good, fluffy conclusion.

Unfortunately, the characters lack all depth, the whole thing is full of told-not-showed, and the side plot lent nothing at all to the story (and really threatened to bury the main plot at times). If you're going to make the main character go through an existential crisis, at least make me care about it. I think the author took a stab at trying to give the story shades of grey, but it felt black and white and, from a character development perspective, very flat.

It filled my library book gap, but it did it in a truly disappointing fashion.

(This book was chosen from the "Heavy on History, Light on Romance" list, and it did check the latter box which I appreciate.)