As The Case of the Highland House Haunting by J.M. Poole opens, Zachary Anderson has now lived in Pomme Valley for several years [Note: Later the book specifies two years, which fits into the series timeline better]. Zac’s pair of corgi detectives, Sherlock and Watson, become better detectives as each new audiocbook comes out.
Zac’s girlfriend, Jillian, has just bought Highland House, a historical house formerly owned by the rich former flapper and bootlegger Hilda Highland. With plans to turn Highland House into a B&B, Jillian hires a crew to renovate the house despite reports of ghost sightings. But when a worker dies as a scaffold collapses, the foreman discovers that someone has removed the pins holding it together, leading Zac and his corgis to get to work investigating. In the midst of their research, they discover reports of hidden jewels, secret rooms, and caches placed throughout Highland House.
As with all the books in this series, I have really enjoyed the storyline of and the pair of corgis in The Case of the Highland House Haunting, who are more significant characters in this audiobook than most human characters. The plot got a little convoluted at times, but it was still an exciting and fun book. I enjoy the personalities of the dog detectives, whose characters have been well fleshed out. Sherlock has always been the cleverer, more active member of the duo than the more laid- back Watson, but the latter has lately grown in her personality (yes, Watson is a girl dog, a point which was cute at first but which soon has become tiresome after multiple explanations of her name in each book) much more than Sherlock has done so.
I do feel that Watson has inexplicably gained new abilities more commensurate with Sherlock’s special gifting than the typical capabilities of Watson. Suddenly Watson has become able to look at a situation and alert Zac to the presence of an important clue.
I listened to the audio version of this fun book, which is performed by Bob Johnson, who has a special knack for making each character seem real. With a voice that listeners will clearly identify as belonging to Zac, Johnson seems to be standing in the room with the listener while performing the action. When the adventure gets more dramatic, then Johnson creates more excitement by speeding up the pace but exercising control over the whole production. As the anticipation eases off, Johnson slows things down. I highly appreciate Johnson’s performance in this series.
The Case of the Highland House Haunting is a very fun book that keeps to the spirit of the series. I really enjoy these audiobooks and hope we have plenty more books to entertain us in the future. I give this book four stars.
Disclaimer: I was given this book for review purposes, but that had no influence on the content of my review.
