Sarah's Reviews > Sherlock Holmes and The Beast of the Stapletons

this book was such. a drag. and a letdown. I didn't enjoy a single thing about it. the plot, the casual racism, the fact that the only women in it were villains or got murderer, the pacing, the bad doyle emulation. listen, a pastiche either has to carry it's own wright with characterization or story OR it has to have an impeccable watson voice. this did neither. do holmes & watson even like each other here?? the thought that the hound in HOUN is the most horrifying thing that's stuck with watson for years considering that he believed his best friend, I don't know, was chucked off a cliff by an evil math professor and also his wife died?? nonsense. and the reverse-HOUN structure of holmes telling watson a tale instead didn't work at all. if you're going to tell a story in holmes's voice it has to sound like him. I wish more pastiche writers would give up attempting to write how they think doyle sounds & just write clearly and we'll in their own style. and don't get me started on the clumsy shoving of modern complex concerns about diversity (& that egregious little plot point about navajo spirituality). I hated this. just awful.