It
is 1894 and all London is abuzz with the astonishing case
of Count Dracula. Professor van Helsing and his “Crew
of Light” have been acquitted of the count’s death
and people are reading the story in the newspapers. But is
everything as it seems? Mycroft asks his brother to find out
more and discover if there truly is such a thing as a vampire
and whether the whole story is fact, or an elaborate and criminal
fiction…
I have read a lot of Sherlock Holmes novels and for a number
of reasons this is one of the best I have read in a long time.
Connecting Holmes and Dracula is not a new idea, but here
it is stood on its head in a most original way. The intrepid
pair has to sift through the published “facts”
and interview the various characters in the Stoker story to
sort out what actually happened. From London to Whitby via
Exeter and on to Transylvania, the pace in this book never
lets up, gathering momentum as it rushes towards an end and
reason for it all that I didn’t see coming. I was impressed
by the way the author had taken a work dealing with the paranormal
and converted it into something dealing with…well, you
will have to read it to find out. The various characters have
also been turned upside down, with van Helsing making a sinister
nemesis not unlike Moriarty, together with various other people
who are not what they seem. No editing is required here in
a story that seems exactly the right length and packed with
incident. This is the author’s first Sherlock Holmes
mystery and I do hope it won’t be his last. Essential
reading for anybody who wants to read a novel that manages
to combine Conan Doyle’s trademark taste for the bizarre
in crime with another Victorian classic.
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