Sherlock Holmes and the Queen of Diamonds

November 12, 2012
Hayes and Whitehead, both authors of western fiction, put a western spin on Victorian London in this entertaining Sherlock Holmes pastiche. When a band of ruffians led by Blackrat Lynch, a notorious gangland figure, attacks Countess Elaina Montague’s coach one foggy night in Green Park, a pistol-packing Thomas Howard from “Missoura” comes to her ladyship’s rescue. Howard explains that he has come to England in search of his brother, Hank. Anxious to repay him, Elaina takes Howard to see Holmes at Baker Street, but the great detective is at first too busy chasing an audacious jewel thief to take on what appears to be a minor missing persons case. London comes to resemble a western American cattle town with barroom brawling, an impressive lariat display by Howard for Elaina’s society guests at Montague Hall, and gun-toting robbers who escape on horseback after hitting a major museum. The story moves at a gallop to an unexpected, if not startling, conclusion.

November 15, 2012
Yippee-ti-yi-yo, Watson! Sherlock Holmes meets Jesse James. When Thomas Howard, a brawny, well-armed man from Missouri, defends Countess Elaina Montague's jewels, and very likely her honor, from Blackrat Lynch's gang of East End ruffians, she thinks the least she can do is move him from his seedy digs to Montague Hall as her guest. Her husband won't mind, she assures him, because he's dead--tactfully not adding that his fall down a flight of stairs has been deemed suspicious by no one less than Sherlock Holmes. In order to repay her debt to Howard, Elaina takes him to her bed and introduces him to Holmes and Watson, who she feels certain are just the right men to help Howard find his missing brother, Hank. But the great detective and his prospective client are soon (literally) at swords' points with each other, and Holmes, whose lightning deductions are the best thing in this lark, informs Howard that Hank is no more than a red herring for the real purpose of Howard's visit to London. The revelations that follow put Holmes and Watson, demoted from narrator to walk-on, in the middle of a fight to the finish between celebrated outlaw Jesse James and Cage Liggett, the Pinkerton man so determined to apprehend him that he set fire to his family home, crippling his mother and killing his young brother. Clearly, the game is afoot. Western specialists Hayes and Whitehead (Under the Knife, 2011, etc.) make Holmes, who "normally slept till noon," less Conan Doyle than Robert Downey Jr. and Howard as painfully American as only the English can do. Strictly for sightseers who've pined to see the Wild West come to a vaguely Victorian London.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2012

A planned coach robbery (and probable rape) is thwarted when a mysterious American stranger looms out of the London fog, takes down the bad guys, and wins the heart of the victim, Countess Elaina Montague. Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have been investigating a series of troubling jewel thefts whose victims are among the lady's acquaintances. Not surprisingly, the cases intersect when a daring museum heist is attempted. With lightening speed, alliances shift as deception muddies the true identities of both the Countess and her mysterious rescuer. Holmes, of course, catches on, ensuring that all villains are accounted for by story's end. VERDICT This clever, smooth pastiche by two writers of Westerns is a real page-flipper and manages to incorporate a Western twang into Victorian London. Pair with Steve Hockensmith's "Holmes on the Range" series and Margaret Coel's recent Buffalo Bill's Dead Now.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.