4.5 stars, I loved this episode of Mary Russell and Sherlock. The characters are lively and the story is heartbreaking and makes you care deeply about the resolution. I wouldn't say there was much Sherlockian detecting going on, but it was still a good time. ( )

Justice Hall story takes place quite directly after The Moor when Holmes and Russell find a bloodied guest at their doorstep begging for help. It actually makes a lot of sense to why O Jerusalem came before this book despite that the story takes place directly after The Moor. You just have to rad this book and the previous to find out why...

Russell and Holmes have to help Marsh Hughenfort discover the truth about the death of his nephew Gabriel Hughenfort who died in the Great War of 1918. But, there is someone out there that doesn’t want the truth to be reveal and will do anything to stop Holmes and Russell finding out the truth…

This is also, like O Jerusalem, a book that took some rereads for me to really warm up to it. I was actually a bit surprised to find I have only given it 4-stars on Goodreads (so I changed it to 5-stars) since I actually like it quite a lot nowadays. I like the connection this book have to O Jerusalem and the case is very interesting and tragic. It’s a very good book. ( )

Justice Hall is possibly - maybe - my favourite Mary Russell book to date. It didn't start that way, but by the end I was sad to leave the Hall and its inhabitants. I was ambivalent about Mahmoud and Ali in O Jerusalem so their re-appearance didn't thrill me at the beginning of Justice but by the end I was quite attached and found them endearing. I also loved Iris; I'd love to see her pop-up again in future books. As always, I could have used more Sherlock.

As I write this, I find myself downgrading my review from 4.5 to 4 stars, because as I look back on it, the mystery itself, the whodunit plot, felt awkward. By the end, it sort of felt like the author just randomly chose the villain to keep the solution from being obvious from the beginning. The wrap up at the end also left a lot of loose threads: were there any consequences, good or bad, for the Darlings? They seemed to have just disappeared, and I'd have liked to have known more about how the changes affected them.

But overall, it was a fantastic story of the murder-at-the-English-country-estate type. The WWI letters were heartbreaking and difficult to listen to; the author certainly had to have done some extraordinary research to achieve this level of verisimilitude.

I'm looking forward to staring the next one on audio (although I'm taking a break for a Halloween season audio). ( )

I love this series but I just didn't care for this one at all. ( )

This was a struggle as I've never been interested in English aristocratic hereditary lines. Very little action in this first half but picked up in the second but realised the images conjured stay with me for a long time afterwards. I'm still thinking of the images from O Jerusalem who proceeded this book. ( )