James Lovegrove

Book 234 - James Lovegrove - Sherlock Holmes and the Three Winter Terrors

I have read a number of Holmes’ novels by this wonderful writer... his pastiche writings of the great author Conan Doyle are a marvel to read. I have said it before that writing Sherlock Holmes' stories isn't easy... to set up a labyrinthine plot worthy of the Great Detective is hard... is complicated... is such a challenge...I know... I've read some awful ones... but this writer had it nailed.

What I love in this one is that there are 3 tales...3 tales that on the surface are supernatural in nature... much like the infamous 'Hound of the Baskervilles' and it takes time for him to peel back the layers of the story to the truth - a witch...a cannibal and a ghost... rather wonderfully there is a subtle link through the stories... not just that they take place in the depths of Winter but through characters and families and friends.

Not going to ruin the 3 stories here but it had me guessing to the end... again…wonderful.… (more)

Book 211 - James Lovegrove - Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons

When going outside the boundaries of the Holmesian canon there are some incredibly well written non Doyle stories. Many many moons ago, Year 1 Book 31 I read ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Tangled Skein’, a brilliant sequel to the most well-known Sherlock Holmes tale - ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’….this is another one and it is also magnificent.

I love a murder mystery and this one is fantastic. The book is divided into 3 clear parts. In part 1 we are reminded of the tale of the original Baskerville mystery…this leads us into the second part and we discover that Sir Henry Baskerville has lost his wife to a giant killer moth…I kid you not…has Jack Stapleton, the killer and lepidopterist from the original tale, returned from the Great Grimpen Mire or worse…is it his ghost ?

Just as Holmes seems to have solved this mystery…we are thrown into the kidnapping of Baskerville’s son and a trek across the world to South America.

It is brilliant…it is terrifying…it is just a typical Doyle-like masterpiece…a tinge of the supernatural…along with murder…deduction…and perhaps most wonderfully it really feels like it is of its time.

Cannot wait to read more from this incredible author.… (more)

Book 157 - James Lovegrove - Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon

Writing a good mystery is very difficult I imagine…writing a good Sherlock Holmes story even more so…it is probably why the originals have stood the test of time so well.

Lovegrove starts off with a wonderfully predictable trope used by Conan Doyle himself by having the magnificently named Eve Allerthorpe as a potential client visiting Holmes and recounting her tale that needs investigating.

It is just before Christmas and she is telling Holmes that she is being tortured and followed by the Black Thurrick…think the Krampus…the Kallikantzaroi or even the Grinch but taken to 11.

Holmes and Watson then travel the family ancestral home to solve a potentially supernatural tale of mischievousness…of creepiness….but as with all good mysteries…the book changes tack when there is a murder…a crime of the heart ? A mystical murder ? Or something much more mundane ?

Not giving anything away but this is wonderful…twisty…dead ends and red herrings galore…stealing from the master of Conan Doyle himself in places but done with reverence and magnificence…with a suitably crafted ending that the readers of The Strand magazine would have loved….as for the Christmas Demon…the Black Thurrick… that would be telling but it is up there with Doyle’s Sussex Vampire…brilliant.… (more)

...and I'm out. I know Lovegrove's got a lot more Sherlock and Holmes novels out there, but after this one, I kinda don't care.

This felt like it was leading to something epic, until the second half, until the final confrontation, was honestly very dull and it felt like he was simply filling pages before he got to the conclusion.

Lovegrove did his homework with the Lovecraft stuff, as well as the Sherlock stuff, and I was initially very interested in how he'd mash them. But this ending felt rather anti-climatic.

Anyway, I'm glad I gave it a shot, there were some fun moments through the books, but I won't read any more of them.… (more)