The Ivory Snuff Box Paperback – March 25, 2014

A detective is sent to find a snuff box which seems insignificant but is claimed to be invaluable to France. First the search to find it, then the struggle to find its significance are the two main quests. The story is drawn out with certain parts being repeatedly gone over. The detective and his new bride were separated an hour after their wedding then find themselves working blindly from opposite directions to solve the mystery. The end was a bit of a disappointment to me, but it may be satisfactory to others. I read the story about the blue lights before this one, which was in the reverse order of their writing. I enjoyed this book more than the other one. I would recommend it for people who enjoy books written at the beginning of the 20th century.

A pretty good book. The plot was exciting, with a few twists that the reader could figure out a little a head of time, which, in my opinion, makes it a little more fun to see if you're right. The writing was decent, except for the downright ridiculous use of the phrase "the latter" I am not exaggerating when I say it was used at least a hundred times. In the first few chapters it was slightly amusing, by the middle of the book annoying, and toward the end it was distracting. I can't see how either an author or proofreader could send something so redundant to print. It would have been less wording to use many of the characters names in reference. Often the offending phrase wasn't even in the same sentence as the object to which it was referring. For example, "This man and that man went up the long flight of stairs. When they reached the top, the latter was quite short of breath."