I enjoyed this book and it was definitely different from anything I've read before. I mostly agree with KJ Charles's review (here), except I'm not sure if I agree that the combination worked.

The mystery plot is openly silly, and the humor did work for me because it's very absurd. But I also didn't care about any of the characters except for Liza and Hanna. This is an interesting contrast to [b:The Affair of the Mysterious Letter|41998209|The Affair of the Mysterious Letter|Alexis Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1538509765l/41998209._SY75_.jpg|60960806], which is also pretty absurd; I cared about the bizarre characters in many of the adventures, because they felt real to me. The characters in this book, though, seem like cartoons. So that aspect of the book is extremely lightweight, but the humor is exactly what I like.

A "marriage in trouble" plot isn't my usual taste as a reader, but whenever it was going to places I was uncomfortable with, the mystery picked back up. There's also a third thread to this story, of Liza gaining self-confidence in her career. I really liked the drawing-room wrap-up scene, because of the description of Liza's emotions at that moment. It was the emotional climax of the book for me and it worked very well.

Overall this book felt kind of experimental, but it was a fun read. I laughed out loud so many times. I appreciate that Alexis Hall continues writing different kinds of books and bringing us so much entertaining genre fiction with queer characters.