November 3, 2014
Mann opens more strongly than he closes in his second Holmes novel (after 2013's Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead). In 1915, Watson is feeling the butcher's bill of WWI personally. His nephew, the last of the family line, was killed in France, just "another forgotten face, another entry in the tally chart of the dead." He gets a welcome distraction from his personal woes when he's summoned to Victoria Station, asked by Holmes to help with a new case. London has been beset by a series of odd suicides: a British Army officer threw himself into the tiger enclosure at the London Zoo, a suffragette jumped in front of a train, and a Member of Parliament plunged himself into the Thames. All three high-profile victims opposed British involvement in the war. The probe takes an odd turn when a search of MP Herbert Grange's belongings turns up some portraits of the politician featuring the images of bizarre gaseous auras. The solution doesn't match the cleverness of the setup, and some of Holmes's deductions are less than convincing.
April 13, 2015
Set in 1889, Mannâs solid steampunk pastiche gives Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson a fantastical mystery to solve. They are consulted by Peter Maugham, whose uncle, Sir Theobald, has just died from a fall down the stairs of his London home. As the only copy of Sir Theobaldâs will vanished simultaneously with his death, Peter, whose inheritance hinges on that document, asks Holmes to look into the possibility his uncle was murdered. While the investigation proceeds, London is plagued by a series of burglaries committed by the so-called âiron men,â powerful glowing-eyed machines that display sophisticated intelligence. Most of the sections involving the criminal automatons are told from the perspective of Insp. Charles Bainbridge, who, later in in life, is a key player in Mannâs Victorian fantasy books (The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes, etc.), making this a good entry to that series. The denouement disappoints, but Mann does a decent job of capturing Watsonâs narrative voice.