3.5 ( )

I have to admit, this concept of mashing Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest creation with some of Lovecraft's is intriguing. It truly should not work, as the Holmes the world knows would have no patience for the shambling Old Ones.

Still, I had to give it a shot. Overall, the tone holds fairly well to Doyle's narrative style and, unlike Nicholas Meyer's Holmes pastiches, Lovegrove doesn't seem to feel the need to pull Holmes away from home turf and throw a lot of cameos in, which I appreciated. Though Holmes comes across someone schizophrenic at times, referring to Watson first as a "dullard" then, pages later, "insightful." So, while there are missteps, overall the tone is good.

The Lovecraftian stuff is also handled fairly well. The usual suspects are tromped across the stage, the Necronomicon is given its due, and overall, it's handled with the appropriate care as well.

What doesn't work quite as well is when Lovegrove has to bolt the two together. For one thing, he erases much of the Holmes/Watson canon—as Watson reminds us on occasion throughout the narrative—and Holmes seems to almost immediately turn his back on his much-quoted belief that "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Case in point: Holmes spends a long night getting information from a dead shaman in a drug-induced state, yet accepts it as fact, instead of questioning the effects of the pharmaceuticals he'd been flying on for hours. Yes, he sees some weird stuff, but he doesn't even seem to attempt a rational explanation before fully buying in. I know he has to, for the story's sake, but come on! He should struggle with this, as his entire worldview has been upended.

Finally, there is a point, maybe halfway through the book—Holmes's drug experience and then Watson's recollection of his military event—that is a seriously long info dump.

So, all in all, it is a fun story, with a few downsides, but overall, it does get the job done better than I expected. I'll absolutely keep going with the series. ( )

Not bad. A bit out of character for Holmes, personally. He seems *very* quick to jump on believing everything. And this also retcons everything rather than adding to it. In this version, all the "official" Holmes stories are mostly made up by Watson to cover up their actual investigations into Lovecraftian horrors. But, as I mentioned before, not a bad read. Might grate a bit if you are a particularly devoted fan of either Lovecraft or Holmes, but for a more casual audience, worth the read. ( )

This Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu mythos mash-up was exciting and gripping from the word go. I actually picked the book as I'm a fan of both Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, and thought it would be amusing, if amateurish. How glad I was to find how well-written and researched the story was. The other thing that struck me partway through the book was how much the main characters - Watson and Holmes - resembled the originals. Their voices stayed true to the Conan Doyle stories.

It was a twisted tale. The search for a missing man leads Holmes and Watson to a pub cum bordello in the Shadwell district of London. There they come under the notice of an East Asian villain who lures Holmes to the Surrey countryside, where Holmes is hypnotised and enabled to commune with the Elder Gods of the Cthulhu stories. Fearing he'd lost his mind, an escaped Holmes confesses the story to Watson, who relates to him a similar experience that took place some years back in Afghanistan.

Is the story preposterous? Entirely. Are there too many narrow escapes? Probably. Neither of those things turned my attention away from the thoroughly original tale. It was a delight throughout and quite often it was very frightening indeed. I am definitely planning to read the sequel and to recommend this book to everyone.

Note: this was an audiobook. ( )

You are far too stolid and unimaginative, Watson, to invent a tale like that.

[b:Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows|29236245|Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows (The Cthulhu Casebooks, #1)|James Lovegrove|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1514564860l/29236245._SY75_.jpg|49477682] is a strange book. In a nutshell, Sherlock Holmes and The Call of Cthulhu are both in the public domain now, so author James Lovegrove essentially took them and mashed them into this unholy (yet at times awesome) abomination. In universe, these stories are told by Watson as 'the real story', where all of the rest of the Sherlock Holmes mythos was fiction made up to hide the darker, Cthulhuian truths. They found their way from Watson to Lovecraft...

Lovecraft will know what to do with the books, which is to lock them in a strongbox and throw away the key. I do not need him even to read them. I merely want them out of me, as it were, in the manner of a diseased organ removed by a surgeon. Before I die I wish to be rid of their accumulated weight, the plague of their presence in my soul. This, then, is a kind of literary exorcism.

...and eventually to Lovegrove.

Storywise, I've read all of Lovecraft, but I don't think I've ever actually read any of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, but rather only seen them. I'll have to fix that. So I can only assume that Holmes is accurately enough portrayed. He's certainly got the pretentious-but-with-cause smarter than everyone attitude I expected down pat:

“Yes, lost. Dr Stamford is the reason I am in this den of iniquity, passing myself off as a ne’er-do-well. If not for you, I would still be observing his activities, unseen, and he none the wiser. Now, come. We must hurry if we are to pick up the scent again.” And that, in all honesty, was how I first met Sherlock Holmes.

And he's completely sure that the the supernatural doesn't exist:

"No, the world is big enough for us, Watson,” he concluded with finality. “No ghosts need apply.”

...

"There is no correlation between them and Stamford’s activities, I can assure you of that, mostly because he is real and they are not.”

Until... he cannot any more:

“My intellect saved me, Watson,” he said. “The science of analytical reasoning in which I have trained myself rigorously since adolescence was what brought me back to myself. Without the power of my brain, my soul might even now be the plaything of some Outer God while my body would be discovered on that hilltop, bereft of sense and wit – something to be locked up and studied in vain by alienists, a drooling, incontinent wreck.”

One thing leads to another, Professor Moriarty shows up, things get nicely creepy, and in the end Holmes and Watson save the day.

For now.

Overall, I went back and forth between 'good enough but not great' and 'this is pretty awesome'. At times, it feels like it's trying too hard to lean on the Holmes and Cthulhu mythoi[^plural] and losing out to that. Especially when it basically has to say 'throw out everything you know about Holmes, now I'm going to tell you the real story' to make any sense what so ever. But it's still a fun story and I enjoyed it well enough to not only finish it, but give the sequels a try.

Onward!

[^plural]: That's apparently the right plural? Who would have expected that?
( )

"If I had only known in advance what he had in mind, I almost certainly would have refused to go along with it." ( )

The mashup is interesting, the characterization spot-on, but the plot is weak. It's not a good Sherlock story, and it's not a good Cthulhu story. I'll carry on to the second book, hoping things get more in line with typical Holmes or Lovecraftian stories. ( )

The general public is well familiar with the stories of the great detective Sherlock Holmes as written by his friend and partner in crime-fighting, Dr. John Watson. What they don’t know is that those stories are just a cover, an embellishment of certain insignificant events in order to hide something of far greater import–something the public should never know about. Because, while in these stories, Holmes is presented as an extremely logical and brilliant man who always a scientific reason for events, the truth is that he and Watson have encountered things that defy science. Horrible, ancient things that could spell the end of mankind if left unchecked. And together, they have pledged their logic and skill to defending mankind from behind the scenes. This is the true story of their initial meeting and subsequent first encounter with the occult, as told by Dr. Watson himself.

Retellings and spinoffs of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories seem ubiquitous, and I’ve personally had mixed experiences with them. Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows belongs to a niche segment of these stories, ones that–like Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald”–cross over with the Lovecraftian mythos. It’s an intriguing mixture, and I found it to be quite well executed in this book. It is couched as being a confession of sorts, written by Watson late in life and never meant to be published. As such, it evokes a tone quite similar to that of the original Doyle stories–I actually found this aspect of it to be fairly convincing. The author makes a lot of comparisons between what was written in said stories and “what actually happened,” which is intriguing to say the least. I found my vocabulary challenged repeatedly, which was refreshing. Unfortunately (although perhaps necessary to evoke the correct feel), the writing expresses period-typical ways of looking at certain people groups, as well as some terminology for such, that could be offensive. Regrettable, that. The actual story and the way the mythology is interwoven into the story is quite well done, a credible way for Holmes to get dragged into this mess. All in all, I found Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows to be a solid, enjoyable story that I would recommend. ( )

Had to finish the book prior to library reclaiming it, therefore accelerated my reading, but the last part of the book very addictive and I wanted to keep reading on. An excellent adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story, it is very different and a supernatural theme compared to ordinary plain mysteries. Very appropriate for this time of year. I bought into this fully and really enjoyed them. Can't wait for book 2 and 3 when published. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 ( )

More than a pastiche, more like a continuation novel with your favourite characters attempted to be reimagined. It started well, with good pacing and the right balance of overt knowledge of the characters and the Cthulhu mythos, with scepticism. However, as the novel progressed it got more and more Indiana Jones like. If you like your action fast and furious and don't mind the use of HP Lovecrafts mythos as a backdrop, you'll probably like this. This isn't a book for those who like a slow burn and the overt nature of the threat and descriptive passages make it very much a fast paced adventure story.
If imagining this on those lines, then this is th book for you. If you like your outer horrors, more subtle and more Lovecraftian and emphasising loneliness, then this ain't the book for you. ( )

It's not Conan Doyle, but it's not bad. An unusual pastiche of both Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, it is a good combination and does incorporate the style of both. I am looking forward to the next two books promised for this series. I received this book through the Goodreads Giveaway program. ( )