About Bianca Die Katz: she is not your enemy. Don't build your entire strategy on failing parley tests on Bianca to play the bulldog, because that does not work. Writing this here because I got caught into "wow here are 2 cards released in the same cycle with an obvious combo between them but actually no.)
Out of various Dark Horse luxury upgrades, this sure is one.
To be fair, it's not a bad upgrade - a cost of 2 instead of 3 means that if you plan ahead with Madame Labranche, you can play this in one turn once you're able to keep Dark Horse flowing. In addition, the ability to ready the card when you fail means that you can commit cards or use other boosts to make a second attempt after you've spent your resources on the first one.
That being said, this doesn't particularly push the boosts or efficiency of Mariner's Compass beyond the baseline, nor does it gain anything which would push it to the (admittedly high) level of Fire Axe. This works fine as a luxury upgrade for the Dark Horse package, but it's still very much a luxury upgrade. If someone didn't want the level 0 version, I don't think this gives enough to make it worth taking in comparison.
For 1xp, I think this is a underrated pick for a lot of investigators. It's versatile in both things you want to be doing with a hand slot, fighting & investigating. It's main benefit is that it's cheap, fast , and gives a +1 bonus each round. It's a great stepping stone to get to Ice Pick (3) a top tier item.
It's a mix between Magnifying Glass & Boxing Gloves, but is severely hurt by the fact that it's exhausted when used, so you only get the +1 bonus once per round. In a lot of ways it's similar to Ritual Candles which want to be paired with a dedicated Fight or Investigate ability like Fingerprint Kit or .45 Automatic. I personally like to pair it with Hyperphysical Shotcaster which can both investigate & fight!
While Ice Pick is limited to a single use per turn, which looks bad on paper, I was pleasantly surprised at how many times I only needed it for that one action as I was moving or playing cards with my other actions.
While this card wasn't part of my initial "upgrade plan" for my Zoey deck, I like it a lot to get a Fast shot with her .45 Thompson (3) which also pays for this card. Guardians don't get a whole lot of additional actions, so it's nice to see them for the things they want to do anyway (i.e. murdering stuff)!
Along with the previously mentioned Sleight of Hand, the two new cards from The Feast of Hemlock Vale: Task Force & Hand-Eye Coordination both give free uses without paying any cost of the Hyperphysical Shotcaster.