B.B. Oak's Thoreau in Phantom Bog

WARNING: There may be snippets of spoilery-type stuff relating to the first two books in the series. Go and read those first. If you don't, don't snipe at me later for giving something away. This is your official warning. Do with it what you will ... 

And so I have caught up on the wonderful little series that I began just a week ago. Thoreau in Phantom Bog is the third of B. B. Oak's Henry David Thoreau mystery series and because it was offered to me by the publisher on NetGalley, is the reason I flew through the first two books in the series. This one is due to be released on August 25th so I could have staggered them some and taken my time more, I suppose, but once I started I didn't want to stop or slow down.

This time around the main focus behind the mystery is the Underground Railroad -- for which Thoreau acted as a "conductor," assisting runaway slaves journey to freedom. At the beginning of the book another conductor is killed and the girl he was assisting has gone missing. Of course, Henry and his friends Adam and Julia take it upon themselves to solve both mysteries : who killed him, and what happened to her?

As if this all wasn't enough to deal with, Julia had gotten married since the last book and run away from her husband in France. In spite of her being legally married (divorce was, at the time, illegal in France), she develops a relationship in Plumford which leads to further complications in the lives of everyone. I admit that I haven't cared all that much for Julia in the previous installments but, even so, my heart went out to the poor girl with everything she's been put through this time! I may have even found myself rooting for her a time or two.

The highlight for me, as with the others, was Thoreau. The Oaks (as "B. B." is a husband-wife writing team rather than just one person) write him so beautifully I sometimes found myself getting all warm and fuzzy and goose-bumpy reading "his" words -- just as I have done reading his actual writings.

(from an Advanced Copy -- final published text may differ)