RogerBW's Blog

The Angel of the Crows, Katherine Addison 15 April 2022

2020 Victorian fantasy. Wounded in Afghanistan, Dr J. H. Doyle returns to London and takes up with a new roommate, a renegade angel interested in the solving of crime.

So well yes. This is unashamed Sherlock Holmes fanfic (or, as the author's note points out, "wingfic"). But it's well-researched fanfic, blending the events of several of the novels and short stories with historical murders – and yes, that includes Jack the Ripper, at which I always tend to sigh a bit because so many dreary people have come up with their dreary theories… none of that here, thank goodness, and the events are spread out among the rest of the stories so that in the end it's one among many cases rather than the focus of the book.

So even as we learn that this London has not only angels but also a veritable array of other magical creatures… it all seems to fit together, and the elephant in the room ("if all these weird things have been there all this time, how can history possibly be recognisable") is at least written round a bit rather than simply ignored.

There was speculation, naturally, about paranormal activity — what polite London (those who called the woman an "unfortunate") termed the "unusual." But the wounds had distinctly been made with a bladed weapon, which ruled out hell-hounds, rogue werewolves, and any other creature incapable of holding a knife, and none of the body was missing, which ruled out necrophages and ghouls, while neither vampires nor any desperate hemophage would have been so wasteful. All the signs pointed toward human agency, and although it was only a matter of time before the howls of "witchcraft!" started up, none of the witches I had met was any more likely to do this sort of thing than their respectable neighbors.

Addison's having fun with this; there are occasional mild references to other mysteries, but this isn't one of those books that tries to wedge in everything. This "Watson" gets to do things rather than merely to be a chronicler, often indeed without "Holmes" as last-moment salvation.

He was a hypochondriac of the first water, taking great and obvious pleasure in reciting his symptoms. He would periodically ask for my opinion; since I was not listening to him, my answers were rather hit or miss, but since he was not listening to me, being too enthralled with the saga of his own health, it hardly mattered.

This is mostly a revisiting of the high points of the Sherlock Holmes canon given a supernatural twist or viewed from a slightly different angle, not an exploration of the nature of this world's angels or other supernatural beasties. There may be an actual hell-hound near Baskerville Hall, but Stapleton is still Stapleton. In some ways it feels more like an academic exercise than like an independent work of fiction, but it's one that worked very well for me, particularly because its Crow and Doyle manage to make their Holmes and Watson sympathetic and interesting even as they fail to fit into normal society.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1