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wannabekingpin's review against another edition
2.0
All reviews in one place: Night Mode Reading
When Jonathan Harker disappears in Romania, with only a couple of cryptic letters to account for his final days, miss Mina Murray comes to Sherlock Holmes for help. Believing the worst, Sherlock and John Watson leave for Transylvania, in search of this suspicious count Dracula, and likely – Harker’s body. What they find instead is far more disturbing. A village bound in terror and superstitions, children disappearing, and no other than three vampire brides of Dracula roaming the castle. Is it all smoke, mirrors, and drugs, or can this possibly be real?
Soon after their return to England, mostly empty-handed, friends find out that the mysterious count and his crates of dirt are here too. Not only is count working with the criminal mastermind, he seems to be well able to put others under his vampiric spell too. As we know from Bram Stoker’s account, Dracula took the life of miss Lucy. What we didn’t know is that he was preying on Watson’s wife Mary also!
This book has a lot of nothing. Dracula appears, threatens, and disappears after Sherlock swears to get off his back. Watson spends his time at work, mourning his friends, and pondering vampirism, with nothing happening around. Plague of vampires, terror of Dracula? Nope, none of that. 2 out 5, I can’t give it more.
When Jonathan Harker disappears in Romania, with only a couple of cryptic letters to account for his final days, miss Mina Murray comes to Sherlock Holmes for help. Believing the worst, Sherlock and John Watson leave for Transylvania, in search of this suspicious count Dracula, and likely – Harker’s body. What they find instead is far more disturbing. A village bound in terror and superstitions, children disappearing, and no other than three vampire brides of Dracula roaming the castle. Is it all smoke, mirrors, and drugs, or can this possibly be real?
Soon after their return to England, mostly empty-handed, friends find out that the mysterious count and his crates of dirt are here too. Not only is count working with the criminal mastermind, he seems to be well able to put others under his vampiric spell too. As we know from Bram Stoker’s account, Dracula took the life of miss Lucy. What we didn’t know is that he was preying on Watson’s wife Mary also!
This book has a lot of nothing. Dracula appears, threatens, and disappears after Sherlock swears to get off his back. Watson spends his time at work, mourning his friends, and pondering vampirism, with nothing happening around. Plague of vampires, terror of Dracula? Nope, none of that. 2 out 5, I can’t give it more.
guinness74's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting little mashup of these two literary worlds. I'm no Doyle or Stoker expert, but I didn't find any glaring inaccuracies. And it certainly did add something to the Holmes genre mostly, at least from the Watson perspective. Certainly this took a bit of research and having grown up in the Jeremy Brett era of Holmes, I tend to think of him mostly in this regard, and this book does not detract from that. However, I do find Martin Freeman's Watson to be more enjoyable from a more realistically frustrated sidekick to Holmes' arrogance. Anyway, the book is not literary fluff, nor is it groundbreaking. But it is a fun little read and shouldn't detract from your enjoyment of either of the main players.
nuffy375's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, I enjoyed this book. The first 2/3, I was completely on board, having a blast seeing Sherlock Holmes thrust into the Dracula tale, but the last 1/3 puts Dracula into Sherlock Holmes, and that did nothing for me.
Our story begins with Mina hiring Sherlock to investigate what happened to her fiance, Jonathan, when he went to Romania for his law firm, as he has been sending her suspicious letters. It's an excellent set up, as in the Dracula novel, Mina is concerned with the unusual letters Jonathan sends her, and she would believably seek out help from the famous Sherlock Holmes. Holmes and Watson travel to Transylvania, and Sherlock spends most of the trip looking for rational explanations for everything that happens to them. They also determine that Dracula and Harker's firm have connections to Moriarty just to weave everything tighter together.
Where the book falls apart for me is when Dracula turns his attention to the Holmes crew, particularly Watson's wife, Mary, to get them to stop interfering with his and Moriarty's scheming, and THEN the plot progresses past the end of the Dracula novel (which is all completed off-stage). Maybe it's because I'm more of a Dracula fan than a Sherlock Holmes follower, but I much preferred the Holmes insert into the vampire classic, than vampirism forcing its fangs into Sherlock's adventures.
Our story begins with Mina hiring Sherlock to investigate what happened to her fiance, Jonathan, when he went to Romania for his law firm, as he has been sending her suspicious letters. It's an excellent set up, as in the Dracula novel, Mina is concerned with the unusual letters Jonathan sends her, and she would believably seek out help from the famous Sherlock Holmes. Holmes and Watson travel to Transylvania, and Sherlock spends most of the trip looking for rational explanations for everything that happens to them. They also determine that Dracula and Harker's firm have connections to Moriarty just to weave everything tighter together.
Where the book falls apart for me is when Dracula turns his attention to the Holmes crew, particularly Watson's wife, Mary, to get them to stop interfering with his and Moriarty's scheming, and THEN the plot progresses past the end of the Dracula novel (which is all completed off-stage). Maybe it's because I'm more of a Dracula fan than a Sherlock Holmes follower, but I much preferred the Holmes insert into the vampire classic, than vampirism forcing its fangs into Sherlock's adventures.
parmacendar's review against another edition
3.0
Very goofy, but fun if you're into that sort of thing. Takes the opposite tack to Loren Estleman's Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula -- in Estleman's book (IIRC) Holmes pretty much immediately accepts the existence of vampires and the supernatural, and fights them on their own terms. In this one, he's determined throughout to prove there is some scientific explanation for it all. Does he? Well... that would be telling. I will say that there are some pretty goofy twists; but as I often seek out pastiches specifically for the goofy twists I'm not about to complain! Estleman's book is on the whole better written and better plotted, though less appealingly weird. I'm probably giving this book a higher rating than it deserves, but Holmes!crack is my weakness.
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