Terror at Scotland Yard

Sherlock Holmes Monster Hunter, Book 1

De: Michael Moreau

Narrado por: Alex Eller

Sherlock Holmes is a timeless character, beloved by many. This is not that Holmes. The year is 1880, 11 years prior to the classic stories that we know, and we step into an alternate universe where monsters are not just under the bed but around every corner. Holmes must use all of his intellectual prowess to sort through this strange underworld of creatures once believed to be only the stuff of lore and children's nightmares. Having abandoned his career as a private investigator the quintessential sleuth is about to make the acquaintance of Dr. John Watson, and with the help of his peculiar new ally, as well as some reimagined versions of other classic Holmes characters, he must endeavor to unravel a mystery that seems to be emanating from the very halls of justice itself. For you see, there is a terror at Scotland Yard!

©2016 Michael Moreau (P)2016 Michael Moreau

Quite a different take on Holmes, but it was fun!

Got this from the author at a convention on audio CD but he gave me a free Audible promo code too!

The author played around with Holmes' universe a bit and I liked it. Lestrade was different, as was Holmes' landlord (I won't spoil it) and he's meeting Watson for the first time under totally different circumstances. There's also another (big) surprise cameo but I won't spoil that one either. Let's just say that it left my jaw hanging.

The story was well written and I liked the dialogue quite a bit as well of Holmes' own exposition parts. Sounds like the author has read a decent bit of Conan Doyle himself. The voice work was spot on, easy to listen to, with nice inflections on the parts that mattered most. The action scenes were dynamite and on the fairly gory side but not overly disgusting (not like Saw or Hostel or anything like that). The mystery was good, quite good, but was probably the weakest element of the book. It did throw me off several times, which was fun, but didn't unfold in quite the same way a Holmes story usually does. I guess that was on purpose though, since this Holmes is very different from the Conan Doyle one, so he kinda thinks differently and approaches problems differently too.

I also felt that I had to address the crummy review with the title "unoriginal". Dude did you even listen to the book?? Yeah, there's definitely some parallels to Grimm and even stuff like Supernatural but that's kinda going to happen when you're writing about a "monster hunter". Yeah, Holmes could see through monsters' disguises...KINDA, but like not reliably at all and only in certain situations and only on "were"-type monsters anyway. I don't remember the TV show Grimm having conditions to the character's power and I really don't remember them having all kinds of monsters that WEREN'T were-type creatures. Also you mentioned a book that Holmes got that had info about monsters in it but it was real clear that he WROTE the book himself, LOL. Sure, he finds some other files later on, but c'mon, it's not even close to inheriting a trailer full of monster knowledge. So yeah, the monsters were totally different, Holmes' ability was very different, and the book you said he inherited or whatever was something he wrote after years of fighting monsters. And as a little aside, Grimm and Supernatural are both awesome shows. So some of those elements mixed with Sherlock Holmes? Um. yes please!

I emailed the author to see if he had any more books planned for Holmes and he said he wasn't sure, but that he probably would release another one eventually. I for one hope that he does.

Surprisingly good

Once you can get by the rather "strange if not wildly weird " premise of this story it is a good Sherlock Holmes adventure .

Unoriginal

If you've watched the show Grimm, this is exactly that! Its like they took the show and made a few minor changes. Instead of Detective Nick Burkhardt, you have Detective Sherlock Holmes. Burkhardt is a Grimm and can see people who are really monsters. Holmes is called something a bit different but has the same ability. Burkhardt is given a book that has been passed down through generations with information on these different monsters. Holmes comes across a similar book. Both Holmes and Burkhardt didn't realize they had this ability until adulthood. There really were no differences that made this story original. The only reason I listened to the whole book was because of the great narration. Alex Eller did an excellent job with each of the characters and all of the different voices and accents. I'd really love to hear more of his work.