Game Review

Board Game Review: Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: Case 2: The Tin Soldier

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a solo or co-op board game that is ideally played by 1-4 players. It takes place in Victorian London (the 1880s-1890s) and you are trying to solve mysteries alongside Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion, Dr. Watson. The goal is supposedly to beat Holmes – solve the mystery with fewer clues than he does – but the real fun is if you follow all the clues, and get a picture of the entire mystery, including the parts Holmes doesn’t touch upon.

I previously reviewed the first case in this collection: The Munitions Magnate. Check out my review here.

The second case is called The Tin Soldier.

In this second case, General Armstead, one of the six surviving Waterloo Tontine ticket holders has been murdered. The Tontine is a lottery of sorts, and was set up in 1815 to aid the veterans of the Battle of Waterloo, Wellington’s victory over Napoleon. The last person alive out of all the participants in the Tontine, wins the grand prize. Armstead is one of the remaining survivors – is his death linked to the Tontine? Or was he murdered for other nefarious reasons?

I enjoyed the second case more than the first for two simple reasons. First, it relies on some historical tidbits, which I liked a lot, and secondly, it is in part a combination of two cases in one – but don’t let yourself get fooled by that.

The case is also slightly more difficult than the first one, and there were again some red herrings that could potentially put you on the wrong track. I was deluded for a while, thinking the killer was someone else than he turned up being, but once I followed the majority of the clues and put all the different stories together, only one killer really made sense.

As a downside, I didn’t beat Holmes on my playthrough – I’m always more interested in solving the entire mystery, even the secondary questions, rather than just jump the shark to get to a quick answer, like Holmes often does – and I think in general it will be very hard to beat Holmes on this one. However, that doesn’t diminish the fun!

If you like Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, then I recommend…

A Study in Shifters (The Adventures of Marisol Holmes Book 1)

“The game is afoot.”

Seventeen-year-old Marisol Holmes wants to live up to the family legacy; after all, she is the great-great-great granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes. What’s more Holmesian than a grisly murder? The Conclave, an underground organization of detectives solving supernatural cases, is giving her just one chance to catch a killer and join them. After all, as a half-blood jaguar shifter, Marisol is uniquely qualified to solve this murder—since every scrap of evidence points toward the culprit being a fellow jaguar shifter.

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

There’s more to this than just evidence. Is one of her own people really involved, or is this all a ploy to kick Marisol’s mother off the shifter throne?

When Marisol discovers her handsome best friend, Roan, is missing, she realizes Roan may be the killer’s next target. The stakes just got higher than political intrigue.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Just when things couldn’t get worse, Marisol’s ex-boyfriend-turned-nemesis, Mannix, starts leaving sinister clues for her. In her last case, Mannix broke her heart and ruined her case, and Marisol isn’t sure which is worse. Marisol fears this case too might be far more personal than she could’ve imagined.

“Elementary.”

It’s time for Marisol to prove her worth, or her people could fall into chaos while her best friend loses his life.

This book is perfect for fans of: shapeshifters, steampunk, paranormal, high school drama, teen romance, Sherlock Holmes and deadly intrigue.

Purchase from Amazon.

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