Take Warehouse 13, make it cool and intelligently written, add in some Sherlock Holmes-ish murders and set it during Victorian London and you would have something almost as good as this excellent steampunk novel. Agent Eliza Braun, of New Zealand and proud of it, likes to blow things up while getting things done for the Ministry - and she always gets things done. Agent Wellington Books likes to invent devices to make his work in the archives of the Ministry more efficient. When Eliza blows up too much stuff on a mission she is demoted to working in the archives with Books. Phoenix Rising A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris Harper Voyager April 2011 At first this rubs them both raw as they struggle against each other for autonomy in their assignment. But when Eliza comes across the case files of the case that got her former partner, and almost lover, hospitalized at the asylum she can't help but pick up where he left off. Intrigued by the case, Books reluctantly joins Braun on the adventure. People killed in various macabre ways, a secret society, spies, high speed carriage chases, machines that serve beer at pubs and more serve up the most entertaining steampunk book I've read in years! More who-dunnit than Sherlock Holmes and more under-cover-ness than most recent spy novels, Ballantine and Morris create a world and a story that you can't help but smile at while reading. This book is a diamond in super-affordable rough. Why isn’t there a major publisher pushing this series with hardbacks and advertising? It has mass appeal and would easily translate into film. I highly recommend this series (hopefully) to fans of steampunk and mysteries. You won’t regret reading it!