Medium – Book
About the Book – Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are at the denouement of a case involving a purloining St Nicholas when they are approached by a beautiful young woman, Eve Allerthorpe, who believes that she is being haunted by a Christmas Demon. Her late mother, who committed suicide last Christmas, told her stories of the Christmas Demon before her death, and now Eve believes that she is being hounded to insanity. If she is found not to be ‘in sound mind’ she will not receive the great fortune willed to her by an eccentric aunt on her twenty-first birthday, falling on Christmas Eve. Holmes and Watson travel to Yorkshire to stay at the manor and investigate the crime, but soon the haunting becomes more ‘real’ as a member of the household is found dead. Will Holmes and Watson save the family, and Eve’s sanity?
My Thoughts – I really enjoyed the first of the Holmes stories by James Lovegrove and was looking forward to reading this one over the Christmas period. The first thing to say was that it wasn’t a bad story – it was gripping in places and although it was fairly clear throughout that certain things were going to happen, there were some surprises and twists which helped keep me entertained. Unlike other books I have read over the Christmas period in previous years, I can’t say that this one kept me completely hooked, but that might be more due to the outside world than the book!
I just think that this book was one that I would have enjoyed more if I felt that the Holmes and Watson characters were either a little more in keeping or their friendship was better explored. I felt that these were two characters operating very much separately, rather than the almost ‘brother-like’ relationship that I feel the characters have in the canon stories and those non-canon ones I have read in the past. So overall, a good book, but not one I would come back to time and time again.
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