Book Review: The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I received a copy of this book from the publisher (Tor) and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Angel of the Crows is basically Sherlock fan-fiction. I can’t even say it’s thinly veiled, because it isn’t veiled at all. And I am completely okay with that.
“I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for a second that I am one of them.”
– BBC’s Sherlock
There were a couple of pretty big twists here and there, but for the most part this book is a collection of faithful retellings of some of Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories. A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Sign of Four, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and more are covered in this collection. The still unsolved case of Jack the Ripper, which has been included or alluded to in many secondary works about Holmes written by other authors, is the thread which ties all of these separate cases into one cohesive narrative. But what sets this book apart from other Sherlockian stories outside of Doyle’s original canon is the author’s truly fascinating addition of the supernatural. This is not mere whiffs of supernatural in and around certain cases. Addison created a world in which the supernatural runs rampant and is accepted as reality but civilization at large.
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