Locked in Pursuit

by Ashley Weaver

Minotaur Books, 2024

Locked in Pursuit, the fourth book in Ashley Weaver’s sophomore mystery series, returns readers to Second World War-era London and the universe of Irish safecracker-turned-spy Electra McDonnell. An ultimatum in the series’ initial book, A Peculiar Combination, explains this about-face: after being caught breaking into a residence, intending to loot the place, the government gives Electira’s lockpicking family the choice to either go behind bars or use their skills to help the war effort. A no-brainer.

Electra has long since grown accustomed to her new role, although she has found herself growing increasingly and inconveniently fond of her aristocratic commanding officer, Major Gabriel Ramsey. The two faced death and their growing feelings for one another at the end of book three (Playing It Safe), but during his months-long recovery from bullet wounds, Ellie hasn’t heard from Ramsey.

Mysteries in the Electra McDonnell series customarily begin with a knock on the door from the major, briefing Ellie in as few words as possible about their newest mission, but this time it’s our heroine who picks up on something curious in the newspaper: a robbery that her family didn’t hear about in the underground crime circles they’re still looped into, even now, as law-abiding citizens. No one takes credit for the crime and not a soul is trying to offload the pilfered goods on the black market. It strikes Electra as highly unusual.

She takes the case to the major’s door and the two eventually begin investigating after attempting to shake off the lingering awkwardness between them. More robberies are uncovered and collected intel shows that all the victims recently shared a London-bound flight from Lisbon. Portugal’s capital may be neutral as the war rages on across the continent, but it’s still become a hotbed of activity, a destination for refugees and secret agents alike. A map, one that could be of great value to the Germans, is what the thieves are discovered to be after, and it’s up to Ellie and Ramsey to find it before it can reach the hands of the enemy.

Ties to the criminal underground are part of Electra’s value to the government and, in this fourth installment, she needs to call upon not one, but two unlikely figures for assistance: a shady club owner who might know something about the robberies and a brilliant, reclusive neighbor who may be able to decipher a code. The latter is personal; on the side, Electra is also trying to solve the riddle of a family tragedy that preceded her birth, and all signs are pointing to her late father not being who he claimed to be.

Both of these men ask Electra to return their respective favors before the book’s conclusion and repaying the debts proves far costlier than our heroine could have ever anticipated.

Unlike in the three books that came before it, the case in Locked in Pursuit isn’t the novel’s greatest strength, nor does it feel like its main focus. Where seasoned mystery writer Ashley Weaver’s storytelling can usually be expected to be tight and engaging, humming along at a fast clip, here it can sometimes feel choppy and forced. There's a discernible lack of intrigue and tension that has defined the series up to this point, and it’s far too easy to forget what our pair are even investigating, given how much pivoting Weaver does between plotlines.

Where Weaver does invest, however, is in the relationship between Major Ramsey and Electra. The pair have been dancing around their attraction to one another for some time, but their working relationship and difference in class standing have stood in the way of anything serious. Being kept apart only has only made the pull stronger. The development of these characters through the series has been so skillfully done that when the two leads merely occupy the same room, not speaking, barely even moving, the electricity between them still hangs in the air like smoke.

The chemistry is undeniable, but so is the deepening nature of their connection; though fiery Electra and controlled Gabriel are remarkably different people, they’ve come to truly care for each other. Know one another, even. When seeing that the major isn’t entirely back in fighting form after their last case, Elektra notes:

Major Ramsey had, upon our first acquaintance, seemed more machine than man to me. It was only gradually that he had begun to seem more human. He was not a man who easily revealed his vulnerabilities, and though I hated to see him in pain, I liked him better knowing he wasn’t invulnerable.

When Major Ramsey accurately predicts how Electra will react to a perceived snub, her uncle Mick, the man who raised her, wisely observes, “‘You can deny it all you like, Ellie, but the major understands you. That’s not something to be taken lightly.” It’s worth mentioning that Electra can’t think up a signature witty comeback in response to this.

Book four likely won’t go down in history as the most memorable or entertaining of the bunch, but it’s the installment the series needed for this relationship to move forward. Weaver needed a book to tidy things up, clearing roadblocks and preparing for books to come. The result is not the most elegant mystery she’s ever written, but it pulls the reader along, if only because Ramsey and Electra are impossible to look away from. There’s every reason to believe that books five and beyond will be worth sitting through this setup.

Olive Fellows is a freelance book critic and Booktuber (at http://youtube.com/c/abookolive) living in Pittsburgh. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, the Christian Science Monitor, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Harvard Review, and Words Without Borders.