Book Review | Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell by Paul Kane

Late 1895. Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr John Watson are called upon to investigate a missing persons case. On the face of it, this seems like a mystery that Holmes might relish, as the person in question vanished from a locked room. But this is just the start of an investigation that will draw the pair into contact with a shadowy organisation talked about in whispers, known only as the Order of the Gash.

As more people go missing in a similar fashion, the clues point to a sinister asylum in France and to the underworld of London. However, it is an altogether different underworld that Holmes will soon discover—as he comes face to face not only with those followers who do the Order’s bidding on Earth, but those who serve it in Hell: the Cenobites.

***

The great detective applies his inimitable intellect to a murder mystery like none other in Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, a surprisingly credible commingling of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic characters and the soul-shredding subjects of The Scarlet Gospels. That's right, readers: Clive Barker's Cenobites are back—and they may actually have met their match.

Holmes himself has seen better days, I dare say. In the wake of the great hiatus, during which period he disappeared to mess with his nemesis, he's alive and relatively well, but without the dastardly Moriarty to match wits with, he's grown a bit bored. And as Dr Watson warns:

When Holmes grew bored, it was usually only a matter of time before he took up his old habit of drug use [...] however his penchant for his seven-percent solution of cocaine, administered via a needle he kept locked away in a polished Morocco box, was the least of my concerns after he returned, it transpired.

The black dog of Holmes' habit is troubling, to be sure, but still more worrisome to Watson is the fact that his closest acquaintance's "malaise was gaining momentum." Said detective is dismissing fascinating cases with no explanation and plying his elementary trade in plague-ridden areas. "If these were in fact efforts to feel something, to feel alive," Watson worries, "then they might well kill the man instead."

It's a relief, then, that "this dangerous road he was heading down: this terrible testing of himself" seems to cease when a couple come knocking on the door of 221B Baker Street. Laurence Cotton's brother Francis has gone missing, is the thing, and the police aren't taking his disappearance seriously—despite the screams the housekeeper heard emerge from the loft he was last seen locking.

At the scene of the could-be crime, our chums uncover a void in the decades-old dust that suggests the involvement of a small box, and soon scent "an odd smell of vanilla" masking an undercurrent of what must be blood. From just this, Holmes is convinced that Francis has fallen victim to some dark deed indeed, but the mechanics of his murder are mysterious—as is the motive of the killer or killers—and that comes to fascinate a fellow famed for his ability to explain anything.

Book Review | Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Sherlock Holmes is dead.

Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place.

Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes's methods of investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.

The game is afoot...

***

The great detective and his greatest enemy are dead—or so it is said.

"After the confrontation that the world has come to know as 'The Final Problem,' [though] there was nothing final about it, as we now know," (p.4) Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty have absented their respective roles, each for his own secretive reasons. So what's Scotland Yard to do when London is rocked by a series of crimes so indescribably violent that they rival the Ripper's?

Why, hand over Holmes' role to Inspector Athelney Jones: a man, you might remember, much maligned by Dr Watson's depiction of him as a total dolt in 'The Sign of the Four.' Since then, however, Jones has "read everything that Mr Holmes has ever written. He has studied his methods and replicated his experiments. He has consulted with every inspector who ever worked with him. He has, in short, made Sherlock Holmes the very paradigm of his own life." (p.146)

And in our narrator, Frederick Chase—apparently the pick of Pinkerton's Detective Agency—Jones' Holmes has his Watson.

Book Review | Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs by Daniel Abraham

When a private envoy of the queen and member of Lord Carmichael's discreet service goes missing, Balfour and Meriwether are asked to look into the affair. They will find a labyrinth of dreams, horrors risen from hell, prophecy, sexual perversion, and an abandoned farmhouse on the moors outside Harrowmoor Sanitarium.

The earth itself will bare its secrets and the Empire itself will tremble in the face of the hidden dangers they discover, but the greatest peril is the one they have brought with them...

***

In recent years, the adventures of Balfour and Meriwether have been a rare yet redolent pleasure. Daniel Abraham's dashing duo have appeared in only two tales to date — 'The Emperor's Vengeance' and 'The Vampire of Kabul' — both of which I reread this week, the better to be ready to review what is certainly their best and most complex quest yet.

I really needn't have — happily, no prior knowledge is required by The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs — though it was a pleasure to immerse myself again in said secret histories, and this novella's revelatory resolution did prove particularly potent on the back of those stories.

Again per the precedent set by its predecessors, there is the sense that The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs is but an episode in the larger canon of Balfour and Meriwether's collaborative careers as agents of Queen and country. Here, however, the episode is essentially supersized; to wit, Abraham is able to expand his narrative and develop his characters in a fairly fascinating fashion.

Book Review | Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

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It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.

Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.

This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from the author, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

***

The first chapter of Anno Dracula is taken directly from the diary of Dr. Seward. Herein the practitioner prowls the shadowy alleys of Whitechapel in search of a vampire to victimise, and in this strangely changed London, he isn't looking long. All too soon he happens upon Lulu Schön, and haunted by the loss of Lucy, the love of his life, Seward proceeds to systematically separate her head from her neck with a sharp silver knife.

Unaccustomed as we are at this early stage to the new world order of Kim Newman's 1992 novel, said slaying seems normal enough for a nosferatu narrative, but the inversion of this penny dreadful premise immediately realigns it in our minds. Had Lulu been a lone vampire stalking the seedy streets - as one presumes though the prologue - there would perhaps be a certain method to Seward's murderous madness. In Anno Dracula, however, she is merely one of an increasing number: the get of Vlad Tepes - now crowned Queen Victoria's royal consort - are everywhere, thus this third cold-blooded killing threatens to tear undead London asunder.

"Everyone began their arguments by declaring that it was about more than just three butchered harlots. It was about Disraeli's 'two nations', it was about the regrettable spread of vampirism among the lower classes, it was about the decline of public order, it was about the fragile equilibrium of the transformed kingdom. The murders were mere sparks, but Great Britain was a tinderbox." (p.109)

To bring the serial killer quickly christened Jack the Ripper to account for his crimes against inhumanity, the Diogenes Club dispatches Charles Beauregard, a rather dashing yet halfway hapless spy. Undertaking the subsequent investigations alongside the aforementioned agent of the Empire, the conflicted vampire rights activist Geneviève Dieudonné - an elder like Vlad Tepes herself - pursues Seward for her own reasons.

These, then, are our primary perspectives - exemplary and complementary, even as romance blooms between the pair like a puddle of blood - though we observe the unfortunate events of Anno Dracula from a few other points of view too; including the British Prime Minister's, and of course our killer's. But Charles and Geneviève are the heart and soul of this dark yet delightfully affectionate diatribe. They are fundamentally decent yet fittingly mysterious people who chaperone readers respectfully rather than condescendingly through the many complexities of an initially dense setting and the intense tale which plays out later.

The world, meanwhile, is built magnificently. Cribbing as much from fiction as history, Newman allows us ample opportunity to luxuriate in a wonderful London - conjured whole cloth from a vast patchwork of fabrics - that is at once familiar and different from the city we've all visited, if not literally then in literature, at least. It comes across convincingly, and comprehensively thought-through - such that the author's extensive annotations, aside the other stocking stuffers new to Titan's essential edition, make for rewarding reading in their own right - but neither overbearing nor, crucially, convoluted.

"It still seems to me something of a disappointment that Stoker's villain, after all his meticulous planning and with five hundred years of scheming monstrousness under his cloak, has no sooner arrived in Britain than he trips up and sows the seeds of his eventual undoing by an unlikely pursuit of the wife of a provincial solicitor." (pp.450-451)

As to the idea animating Anno Dracula, encapsulated by the author above: I admit it might not seem so novel in this over-saturated day and age, but fully two decades ago, upon the original publication of Newman's pitch-perfect pastiche, I warrant it was exactly that. And even now, this fiction is so rich and well-wrought that it stands head and shoulders (not to mention necks) above the most considered contemporary contenders.

A magnificent mash-up of fantastic fact and fantasies derived from fiction, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman is an enthralling alt-historical horror novel from word one, and it only becomes more glorious as it goes. One wonders how a chronicle of this caliber could possibly have fallen out of fashion in the first! If there's any justice in the world, its revision and reissuing in the modern marketplace in anticipation of Johnny Alucard's release next year should serve its author as well as this edition indubitably does us.

***

Anno Dracula

by Kim Newman

UK & US Publication: May 2011, Titan Books

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Book Review | Jack Glass by Adam Roberts

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Jack Glass is the murderer. That, at least, is quite transparent. 

He has sliced a lethal swathe through known space. He is without pity or scruple. He is a killer. 

Were the authorities ever to discover that it was actually Jack Glass that they had detained on a remote prison asteroid they would return and kill him immediately. And they will discover it. The murderer will have to escape. And that, of course, is impossible. 

From a tiny asteroid in the far reaches of space, to a comfortable country house, to a sealed orbital habitat, Adam Roberts takes us on a spellbinding journey through a future that challenges all our notions of crime, punishment and freedom.

We know whodunnit. Now we must learn how and why. 

***

When hours into the uncomfortably compelling story of survival in the extremes of space with which this masterful murder mystery begins, it dawns on you that you've been tricked into sympathising hook, line and sinker with a sociopathic serial killer, in that moment you know: you're in for something special. Adam Roberts' unabashedly smart new narrative, Jack Glass, is absolutely that. Incredibly, it's a whodunit so sure of itself that we're told who done it up front... if not how or why, or even what "it" is (or was) in one instance.

But before (and after) we get ahead of ourselves — readers, meet the monster:

“The one, the only Jack Glass: detective, teacher, protector and murderer, and individual gifted with extraordinary interpretive powers when it comes to murder because he was so well acquainted with murder. A quantity of blood is spilled in this story, I'm sorry to say; and a good many people die; and there is some politics too. There is danger and fear. Accordingly I have told his tale in the form of a murder mystery; or to be more precise (and at all costs we must be precise) three, connected murder mysteries.

“But I intend to play fair with you, reader, right from the start, or I'm no true Watson. So let me tell everything now, at the beginning, before the story gets going.

“One of these mysteries is a prison story. One is a regular whodunit. One is a locked-room mystery. I can't promise that they're necessarily presented to you in that order; but it should be easy for you to work out which is which, and to sort them out accordingly. Unless you find that each of them is all three at once, in which case I'm not sure I can help you.

“In each case the murderer is the same individual — of course, Jack Glass himself. How could it be otherwise?” (pp.1-2)

How indeed.

Well, as I said a second ago, the how's half the fun; a key piece of the puzzle, alongside the unpacking of the what and the why, the unpicking of the where and the when. At some stage, all of these "wh" words come into play... excepting the obvious, the who of this howdunnit, because obviously Jack did it, didn't he?

Actually, Jack Glass isn't as simple as that, especially when it appears to be. Strictly speaking. All in the spirit of this most magnificent thing, then!

As our as-yet unnamed narrator acknowledges, Roberts' latest greatness is in fact a sequence of three intertwined tales, each of which revolves around a death. In "In the Box," seven convicted criminals are, ingeniously I might add, imprisoned by a canny contractor on a tiny asteroid. It will be eleven years before anyone comes to get them, and in the interim, they can either work together, or die apart.

They've been furnished with a sparse selection of terraforming tools, including an air scrubber, a small space heater, several digging implements, and some lovely mould spores for supper. If they dedicate themselves to the task, the prisoners might be able to eke out the time till their release in some modicum of comfort by excavating a home for themselves — and in so doing creating valuable real estate for the Gongsi to sell at the end of their sentences. Inevitably, however, power struggles occur from the offing, and finally, like sunlight after a long night, death takes its terrible toll. As "In the Box" approaches its irrevocable ending - though the whole book, in truth, has hardly begun - sudden, shocking, even sickening violence is visited upon these prisoners.

And we all know who's responsible.

(Or are taking too much on trust?)

Certainly, we are rather less convinced of our killer's culpability in the next narrative. "The FTL Murders" is the longest of Jack Glass' three parts, and - though the particulars differ - "The Impossible Gun" follows hot on its heels, thus we can discuss them as one, avoiding spoilers.

Our protagonist in this instance, if not necessarily our narrator - whose identity, incidentally, is among the simplest and most satisfying mysteries of Roberts new' novel - our protagonist, in any event, is Diana Argent. Just shy of sweet sixteen when we meet, she becomes obsessed by the seemingly inexplicable slaying of a servant just feet from her and her sister's secret retreat on Earth: the better to keep their bones finely honed, but also because the girls stand to inherit the solar system, so powerful and ambitious are their MOHmies... which is to say their parents, to a point.

Then, essentially the second this awful event is settled, another man is massacred in perilous proximity to Diana and her companion. And on this occasion, the circumstances - recorded as plain as day for any and all parties to examine - truly beggar belief.

Death, then, is omnipresent in Jack Glass, yet it is far from a bleak piece. On the contrary, at times, Roberts' prose and tone is blindingly bright, so don't let some presumption of doom and gloom dissuade you from this fantastically imagined and remarkably wrought trinity of science fiction, murder and mystery. As one of our major players puts it:

"Individually speaking, death is always a rupture, a violence. But taking a total view, death is the bell curve upon which the cosmos is balanced. Without it, nothing would work, everything would collapse, clogged and stagnant. Death is flow. It is the necessary lubrication of universal motion. It is, in itself, neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy." (p.337)

In a sense, reading Jack Glass is like going back to a book you remember very well. After all, we already know the ending. The solution to this puzzle is, fittingly, predictable. But that gets to the heart of what makes Robert's novel so impressive, for the less time we spend humming and hawing over the name and nature of the killer, the more there is to revel in the pure pleasure of the overarching enigma. Why fixate on the destination, anyway, when the journey is so sublimely satisfying in and of and outwith itself? It's freeing, even.

Doubly incredible, then, that though we are given definitive answers to the customary questions at the outset, Jack Glass keeps one guessing till the last second. Perfectly plotted, winningly worded, and as rewarding, despite everything, as anything you’re apt to read this year, this trifecta of golden age goodness is yet another example of Adam Roberts' tremendous talents. Bravo!

***

Jack Glass

by Adam Roberts

UK Publication: July 2012, Gollancz

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The Scotsman Abroad | Holmes for the Holidays

As much to my surprise as anyone else's, I enjoyed the new Sherlock Holmes novel by Alex Rider writer Anthony Horowitz... well, immensely. You can read my review of The House of Silk in full here, but suffice it to say Horowitz's novel so endeared the great detective to me that I immediately laid waste to my little library, the better to see what other contemporary pastiches I could read to tide me over till the imminent second season of the exemplary BBC series.

Fast-forward to the present - though 2012 still sounds like the far-flung future to me - and I may have read more Sherlock Holmes stories in the last month than ever before -- not just to satisfy my own appetites, either, because a while ago I heard how the overlords in charge of Tor.com were intending to keep the site ticking on over through Christmas and New Year.

The result - Holmes for the Holidays - has been running since a bit before the big day, and it's been brilliant. Lots of fun, and indubitably interesting. If you aren't following along already, I'd wholeheartedly recommend you pop on over to the index and catch up if you can.

For my part, I contributed two short articles, both of which have now had their official unveiling. In the first, I looked at an old one-shot Caliber Comics put out in the mid-90s: namely The Sussex Vampire, a short graphic adaptation of the original Conan Doyle story masterminded by none other than Warren effing Ellis.

'The Sussex Vampire' is an excellent adaptation of a sterling Sherlock Holmes story, fittingly illustrated and ably scripted by an author since risen to renown, whose early work – up to and including this superb single issue – deserves a great deal more attention than it gets. Warren Ellis and Craig Gilmour make for fine co-conspirators, and while 'The Sussex Vampire' isn’t as easy to find these days as it was for me, way back when – at least, not by legal means – if you can: do.

(read more)

And I couldn't very well let a celebration of all things Sherlock Holmes pass by without a tip of the trilby - ahem - to Neil Gaiman, whose stunning 'A Study In Emerald' entangled the mythos of everyone's favourite consulting detective together with that - of all things - of H. P. Lovecraft.

Then, in the process of researching 'A Study In Emerald,' I realised Gaiman had recently written a second Sherlock Holmes story, so I got myself a copy of the new anthology out of Titan Books - that is to say A Study in Sherlock - and endeavoured to write about these two weird tales together.

'The Case of Death and Honey' occurs in the mysterious twilight years of the great detective's career, but is also alludes to what might have happened to our man after his retirement. Given that 'A Study In Emerald' so evoked 'A Study in Scarlet' - which is to say the very first Sherlock Holmes story - this, I think, is particularly fitting. A sort of closing of the circle; though it isn't giving the game away to stress, a second time, that appearances can be... deceiving.

(read more)

Never mind the various other stories it contains, A Study in Sherlock is worth the price of admission for 'The Case of Death and Honey' alone. It's the sort of short story that reminds you what short stories are for. 

Anyway, I will of course be glued to the telly tonight, when the first feature-length episode of the second season of the BBC's Sherlock series premieres. If there's a better way to ring in 2012, no-one's mentioned it to me!

I'm almost afraid to ask, but you guys are as psyched as I am, right?

As to A Game of Shadows, in case you were wondering: no, I haven't seen it yet... but I am hoping to make it to the movies in the imminent. For this, do you think? Or should I wait to rent it on Blu-ray, and see something better?

The Scotsman Abroad | Horowitz Is At Holmes

This interview with Anthony Horowitz did not make me want to read The House of Silk.

The House of Silk, for those of you who don't know, is the new Sherlock Holmes novel. No, really: there's a new Sherlock Holmes novel. Is that such a surprise? Given, for instance, the "lost" volume of Gormenghast that came out earlier in 2011? Never mind the renewed interest in the character and the canon as a result of the BBC TV series, which in my eyes can't come back soon enough, and the new movie franchise, which can, and indeed shall in a few short weeks.

Anyway, for the first time since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's death, the estate who hold the copyright on the great detective has invited a new author to step into Sherlock's shoes: namely Anthony Horowitz, who writes the Alex Rider series, and seems - to put it politely - pretty sure of himself.

The result? Actually a pretty terrific addition to the mythos:

"Call it revisionist literary history, call it po-faced pastiche, call it whatever you damn well please — and no doubt a certain camp will call The House of Silk a cold-blooded cash-grab, and worse — but be assured, whatever your position going in: it is from first to last a worthy Sherlock Holmes story, and there can be no more persuasive testament to its faithfulness, if not necessarily its greatness, than the fact that the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have claimed it as canon... though I would suggest, with the greatest respect, that they do so at their own peril.

"You see, insofar as The House of Silk pays fond homage to the Sherlock Holmes stories we have adored before, over and over, in the same breath Horowitz’s all-too-short sidequel of sorts also serves to shine new light on those things that made the great detective great, not least his ensemble support and the city his stories are set against. We see Holmes guided for once by instinct over intellect; we meet an Inspector Lestrade much improved over the hapless fool of Conan Doyle’s stories; meanwhile the Scots author’s well-to-do London seems in retrospect a positively pleasant place next to the ominous underbelly Horowitz represents so authentically." 

(continue reading)

 

The House of Silk is respectful but not slavishly so, darker than the Sherlock Holmes stories we're used to but not so insidious as to scare anyone off. Ultimately it's just a bit of fun, and I rather doubt it'll ever figure in to the complex chronologies Conan Doyle devotees like to put together to pick apart... but fun is fun. I like fun.

Don't you?