After battling criminal masterminds, horrible hounds, and even the giant rat of Sumatra, what’s left for Sherlock Holmes to face? How about a ‘sharktopus’? Yeah you heard us right. Sharktopus.
Dead bodies are appearing on the streets of London, bearing all the hallmarks of animal attacks. Holmes & Watson investigate and soon discover that noted vivisectionist, nutcase, and island-owner Dr. Moreau may be behind the grisly murders. The game’s afoot! Or a hoof maybe…
The idea of the Great Detective engaging in fisticuffs with animal-human hybrids from HG Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau is something you might expect to see in the fan-fiction of an opium-addict, but author Guy Adams has meshed the two contemporaries of 1890s fiction and created a story that serves both original novels well.
All the familiar marks of Holmes are here: tobacco-packed pipes, Hansom cabs, Mycroft and Mrs Hudson… but this time set in a larger world of Victorian gothic mystery and turn of the century science fiction. To see Holmes’ cold logic set in counterpoint against the bizarre and fantastical is always a treat.
Fans of late-Victorian and Edwardian adventure stories will have a little extra to enjoy as Adams introduces characters from Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and H.G Well’s The First Men in the Moon for various cameos. It’s an enjoyable bit of world-building, as well as a nod to Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Adams has a filmic eye for detail and action, resulting in a rapidly-moving plot packed with adventure. His writing of Holmes is informed by several of his screen incarnations as much as the original in type. There are moments of logical outburst and mercurial temper that are pure Jeremy Brett, while during the more action-packed sequences (such as fighting a dog-headed man) you get the feeling he has Downey Jr. in mind. It’s a concoction that proves to work across the cerebral scenes and the fast-paced sections.
Unfortunately – and without giving anything away – the final act is disappointing in its execution and its brevity. The story is suddenly related from the points of view of several different characters, and although it’s clear why Adams has written it this way, it fragments the action rather than focusing it, and leads everything to feel very choppy. Then it’s all over so abruptly that you may feel a concluding chapter has fallen out of your copy.
But that’s an unexpected stumble at the end of what is otherwise a terrific story. Much like Dr. Moreau, Adams has spliced together Sherlock Holmes with the adventure fiction of the 1890s and 1900s – grafting a character on here and there – to create a solid Holmes mystery set in a London more dark and thrilling than the detective has ever seen.
A highly-recommended read for summer.
Published on Friday 24th August 2012 by Titan Books.