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For a debut novel, this book was OK. Yes, I said OK as I had a love hate relationship with this book from the very first chapter.
For anyone to take on writing about the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson takes guts, but if it is pulled off well as in the case of the [b:The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel|11093329|The House of Silk A Sherlock Holmes Novel|Anthony Horowitz|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327877129s/11093329.jpg|16015218] it can be a glorious thing, that was not the case here. Despite a valiant effort, this Author was unable to capture all the character nuances that combine to make the detective readers of other Holmes missives have come to know and expect. By writing the book from the perspective of Dr. Watson a lot of the internal debates and musings Holmes has with himself are lost along with a lot of his eccentric qualities. In this book Holmes comes across as an arrogant, pretentious ass that has no lovable qualities to his name at all. Unfortunately, Dr. Watson does not come out of this novel unscathed; as a character I’ve always seen as being the stable and steadying force behind Holmes, here he is depicted as bumbling fool who would be well pressed to dress himself in the morning. The portrayal of Jack the Ripper was also flimsy, and would have benefitted greatly with a lot more fleshing out and back story.
The novel is extremely dry, the language at times definitely at odds with the era in which it is set. The Author does a good job of portraying Whitechapel at the time of the murders but apart from that there was very little to keep me interested, and this was definitely not the page turner that had been promised. For me there was not enough tension, and the discovery of who the Ripper was became obvious about partway through the book; surely not a mystery worthy of calling in Holmes to solve.
If you like Sherlock Holmes, you may enjoy this book; as for me I don’t think I will be reading anymore by this Author despite their valiant attempts to recreate the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/02/09/review-dust-and-shadow-an-account-of-the-ripper-killings-by-dr-john-h-watson-lyndsay-faye/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
For anyone to take on writing about the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson takes guts, but if it is pulled off well as in the case of the [b:The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel|11093329|The House of Silk A Sherlock Holmes Novel|Anthony Horowitz|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327877129s/11093329.jpg|16015218] it can be a glorious thing, that was not the case here. Despite a valiant effort, this Author was unable to capture all the character nuances that combine to make the detective readers of other Holmes missives have come to know and expect. By writing the book from the perspective of Dr. Watson a lot of the internal debates and musings Holmes has with himself are lost along with a lot of his eccentric qualities. In this book Holmes comes across as an arrogant, pretentious ass that has no lovable qualities to his name at all. Unfortunately, Dr. Watson does not come out of this novel unscathed; as a character I’ve always seen as being the stable and steadying force behind Holmes, here he is depicted as bumbling fool who would be well pressed to dress himself in the morning. The portrayal of Jack the Ripper was also flimsy, and would have benefitted greatly with a lot more fleshing out and back story.
The novel is extremely dry, the language at times definitely at odds with the era in which it is set. The Author does a good job of portraying Whitechapel at the time of the murders but apart from that there was very little to keep me interested, and this was definitely not the page turner that had been promised. For me there was not enough tension, and the discovery of who the Ripper was became obvious about partway through the book; surely not a mystery worthy of calling in Holmes to solve.
If you like Sherlock Holmes, you may enjoy this book; as for me I don’t think I will be reading anymore by this Author despite their valiant attempts to recreate the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/02/09/review-dust-and-shadow-an-account-of-the-ripper-killings-by-dr-john-h-watson-lyndsay-faye/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.