2018/65: The Somnambulist and the Psychic Thief -- Lisa Tuttle

...something sparked between us. It was not that romantic passion that poets and sentimental novelists consider the only connection worth writing about between a man and a woman. But there was curiosity in that look, on both sides, and a tentative recognition – or at least the hope – that here there might be a congeniality of mind and spirit. [loc. 121]

1893: Miss Lane has been involved with the Society of Psychical Research for years, but flees her latest assignment after discovering that her 'closest companion', friend and employer Gabrielle Fox, has been using the same fraudulent tricks as the false mediums they've investigated.

Arriving in London with little luggage and less money, Miss Lane notices an advertisement in a shop window for a 'literate, brave and congenial' assistant to a consulting detective. Not Holmes, though one could be forgiven for confusing the two at first: Jasper Jesperson is brilliant but naive, a crack shot and a master of the deductive method who is oblivious to the financial hardships afflicting the household.

This is a world in which both our protagonists are familiar with the works of Arthur Conan Doyle -- indeed, this short novel could be read as a fond critique of some of the Holmes stories -- but it is a world in which some aspects of the supernatural, at least, are real. The duo's first two cases involve a wife worried about her husband's somnambulism, and the disappearance of a number of noted psychics. (For added frisson, the latter case is brought to the attention of Jesperson and Lane by the perfidious Miss Fox herself.) Further investigations, combining Miss Lane's rationalism and Mr Jesperson's immense self-confidence, reveal connections between the two cases -- and a previously-unsuspected talent of Miss Lane.

I liked the relationship between the two protagonists, and the profound good sense and stoicism of Miss Lane. I was also pleased that Tuttle didn't feel it necessary to explore or explain Miss Lane's relationship with Gabrielle Fox: in fact, neither protagonist has any romantic or sexual relationship, which suits the social restraint of the period and with the rationality so valued by the pair. And how refreshing to read a book about a partnership between a man and a woman where neither sexual attraction or romantic wishes are an issue! Instead, they bring out the best in one another: Miss Lane becomes less mistrustful, Mr Jesperson less swashbuckling. I look forward to further cases.