Book Review: Shadows over Baker Street

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Shadows over Baker Street     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Michael Reaves , John Pelan
Class/Genre:   Mystery   [Short Stories]
Del Rey, Oct 2003, $23.95, 464 pp.

Every time this reviewer concludes that there is no way to place Holmes who’s been around in so many different clever settings in the past few decades a new approach occurs. SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET takes Holmes out of Doyle’s Victorian England and relocates him in H.P. Lovecraft’s Victorian England. Seventeen tales are set in the last two decades of the nineteenth century while three occur in the twentieth.

The premise of changing the setting of the world’s greatest detective works, providing the Baker Street crowd with a strong invigorating anthology. However, besides the obvious uniqueness of the background, the collection also takes a wider look at Holmes by including renowned authors from non-mystery genres along with the who-done-it writers. Thus, twenty tales from horror, science fiction, fantasy, and of course mystery (what! No romance or western) furbishes a strong unique anthology in which the worlds of Lovecraft and Doyle converge into a tremendous short story book with no weak entry.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner