Narrated by Greg Tremblay
Note: This review contains spoilers for the previous books in the series.
Where All Paths Meet is the exciting finale to The Adventures of Holloway Holmes – an intricate, gripping mystery entwined with a heartfelt and endearingly sweet romance – which sees our heroes up to their necks in trouble again as the author pulls together all the plotlines he’s threaded through the series so far – so you need to have listened to the previous books before tackling this one –
At the end of The Old Wheel, Jack discovered that he’s actually a Watson (on his mother’s side) and that Holloway had been keeping it a secret from him, which led to a huge row and to Holloway completely disappearing from Jack’s life. Time hasn’t healed any wounds and five months later, Jack is still a mess of emotions; angry at Holloway for keeping secrets, angry at himself for falling for it – and for him – hurt and upset at the way Holloway just cut him out of his life so easily, and miserable without him.
Then, completely out of the blue, Jack receives an invitation to an event at Zodiac (a multinational tech corporation in which Blackfriar Holmes is the major shareholder and CEO, and Maggie Moriarty is the chief of AI), which encloses a note saying: “Come if you want to know the truth about your mother.” No way is Jack going to pass up the opportunity to find out the truth about his mother’s death or about what he now realises were several attempts on his own life over the past few months. After he arrives, he quickly finds himself confronted by the Holmeses – Blackfriar, his icily beautiful and enigmatic wife and Holloway’s sister, Noneley – and as they drift away, he receives an anonymous text telling him to go to Maggie Moriarty’s office straight away. Still hoping to receive the information he’s been offered, he’s just exited the elevator when the power goes out. As he’s making his way cautiously along the corridor in the dim emergency lighting, a young woman carrying something small in one hand hurries past him and crashes through the fire exit door; after she disappears, Jack enters Maggie’s office to see a figure standing on her desk and then notices the open wall safe. The thief runs; Jack gives chase and corners them, but in the tussle that ensues finds himself caught in a very painful – and very familiar – wrist lock.
There’s no time to savour their reunion or for Jack to let out all his months of pent-up frustration by having a good yell at Holloway because shouts from above are followed by bullets and the shriek of alarms. It’s not until they’ve managed to evade their pursuers and are once again on the road in Jack’s beat-up old truck that he unleashes his anger and demands an explanation. And, at last – and in bits and pieces – Holmes tells Jack the truth. That before Sarah Watson was killed, she’d left something important (Holmes doesn’t know what) in a portable safe with instructions that Jack should open it; that he’d hidden the safe in Jack’s room from where it had been stolen; that he was at Zodiac that night to steal it back… and Jack realises what the woman who’d passed him in the corridor earlier must have been carrying. They head to her apartment to see if they can retrieve the safe only to discover it missing and the woman dead – murdered, but staged to look like a suicide.
Once again, Jack and Holloway have got themselves tangled up in something dark and dangerous, going up against powerful people who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding and revealing the truth. The mystery contains all the author’s trademarks; it’s clever and twisty and gut-wrenching, but the beating heart of these stories is the relationship between Jack and Holloway, the depth of the affection and love between them leaping from every page. But even though they fall back into their established patterns fairly quickly – Jack teases and talks shit, Holloway blushes and takes things too literally – there’s a new tension to their relationship, the cause of which can be summed up in one word – Blackfriar. Jack knows he’s responsible for Sarah Watson’s murder and suspects he’s responsible for many others, including that of his mother; he’s seen what Blackfriar has done to his son, how his insistence on perfection and control has forced Holloway to become a ruthlessly efficient, emotionless shell which, without Jack’s humanising influence, he would probably have continued to be. But whenever Jack voices his suspicions, Holloway shuts him down; he believes that his father has his best interests at heart and has been so hard on him to help him to eliminate his weaknesses. It’s tough to hear, especially when it puts them at odds; Holloway – perhaps understandably – is unable or unwilling to see himself as a victim of abuse, and it’s heartbreaking to see Jack so desperately wanting to help him and Holloway stubbornly refusing to be helped – especially as we know that Holloway is too intelligent not to see the truth and is clinging to his beliefs because to believe otherwise would hurt too much.
Jack and Holloway are fascinating, loveable characters, Jack’s humour, honesty and big heart providing the perfect foil for Holloway’s logical mind and tight control. They’re smart and funny and kind and screwed-up, but although they’ve been through things that have forced them to grow up quickly, the author juxtaposes that early maturity with typically teenaged antics (on Jack’s part) or innocence (on Holloway’s) that reminds us they’re still in that weird space between adolescence and adulthood. And even after serious disagreements and heartbreaking betrayals, there’s no question that they’re devoted to each other or that they make each other better – just as every Holmes and Watson have done for each other over the decades.
Greg Tremblay is always good, but it seems to me that this series has afforded him the opportunity to really exercise his acting chops – not only because of the large number of characters and the different accents involved, but because so much of the heavy lifting in these stories is done by the emotions. Jack’s rage and anguish over Holmes’ abandonment are visceral and the vulnerability he works so hard to hide is closer to the surface than ever and very present in his voice; Holmes’ speech – which was stilted and almost robotic when we first met him – is more frequently infused with emotion and frustration, and Mr. Tremblay does a magnificent job with his portrayal of Jack’s dad later in the book – a terrified father desperate to keep his son safe but furious with him at the same time. The performance is perfectly paced, superbly acted and absolutely spot on in every single respect.
I admit that I wasn’t convinced this series would be for me before I started it. YA isn’t a genre I usually enjoy and I’ve never been a big Sherlock fan, but I am a Gregory Ashe fan and he hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Where All Paths Meet is an exhilarating and compelling finale to The Adventures of Holloway Holmes – and keen-eared listeners will no doubt have picked on a couple of hints that there may be more stories to come for this Holmes and his Watson. I’ll definitely be here for them.
Caz
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