"Sherlock Holmes & The Christmas Demon" by James Lovegrove

This novel is an entertaining mash-up of Radciffean Gothic complete with the usual tropes of a castle with uninhabited rooms and a cellar, a damsel in distress, on the edge of madness, a dastardly villain and a Byronically wayward son, a family legend and, of course, the (eventually explained) supernatural with a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery.

All the classic Sherlockian moments are there including some wonderfully Victorian phraseology, the delightful misunderstandings of the stalwart Dr Watson and Sherlock's eclectic learning and incredible powers of observation, although the reader is given a fair chance of cracking the puzzle (I did!) which is often frustratingly absent in the Conan Doyle originals. 

It was quick and easy to read: I completed it in two sittings. It's  perfectly paced with a murder happening almost exactly at the half-way turning-point. Clues and red herrings are carefully scattered and there is opportunity for Watson to use his "service revolver"! An enjoyable and well-written tribute to the great detective, and the incomparable Mrs Radcliffe.

Selected quotes:

There is one moment of description which impressed me with its careful and precise accuracy: 

• "What can I say about the long, cold watch? Shall I mention how the frigid air seemed to seep through my muscles into my bones and made them ache? Shall I relate how the silence filled my ears as though it had actual substance? Shall I talk about the continual, stealthy shifting of feet and wriggling of fingers that was required in order not to lose all sensation in my extremities? What about the way that time, as though made torpid by the cold, crawled by?" (Ch 26) 

My other four favourite moments are all tongue-in-cheek examples of Watson as the genial, slightly pompous bumbler, at least in comparison to the superhuman if immensely arrogant Holmes:

• "'You have a way with a proverb, old friend, as befits a wordsmith of your calibre.' Compliment? Or not? With Sherlock Holmes it was sometimes hard to tell." (Ch 7)
• "Watson, you have done it again! In your chronicles of my exploits you often paint yourself as something of a dunderhead, but that does you a disservice." (Ch 10)
• "It behoved me, as an author, to look for my own work amongst the multitude, but a cursory inspection turned up nothing. I consoled myself with the thought that my literary career was still in its infancy." (Ch 18)
• "A touch louder, old fellow. I don't think the entire castle heard you." (Ch 19)

March 2024; 372 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God