Dr. J.H. Doyle, late of Her Majesty’s Imperial Armed Forces Medical Corps, knows he’s not an easy person to live with. He’s sullen and pedantic at the best of times, and he’s still reeling physically and financially from an injury suffered at the hand (claw) of a fallen angel in Afghanistan. Add to this his increasingly worrisome transformations during the night and, well, finding a roommate that can put up with him is maybe more trouble than it’s worth. But then, Doyle meets Crow, an angel as artless as he is enigmatic, and finds himself drawn inexorably into his orbit. And he doesn’t just get a roommate out of the deal—Crow brings with him a host of London’s dark and uncanny creatures, not to mention a slew of mysteries that will bring them closer and closer to the doorstep of the infamous killer Jack the Ripper.
Yes, Katherine Addison’s new novel, The Angel of the Crows, is supernatural Sherlock fanfiction (wingfic, to be precise). She’s not hiding it either—it’s right there in the author’s note, and undeniably written into every other character name, easter egg, and case file. And the sooner you embrace this sincerely dorky premise, the sooner you can get to all the fun.
Set in an alternate 1880s London, The Angel of the Crows follows Crow—our Sherlock stand-in—and Doyle—our dear Watson—as they solve a series of oddball mysteries about town. Fans will recognize stories like “A Study in Scarlet” and The Hound of the Baskervilles, as well as characters like Moriarty (he’s a vampire now) and Lestrade (still a lesser mortal) in its pages. The catch is not only the novel’s supernatural entities and phenomena, but also the ways that these distortions change the once-familiar stories into something new. How, after all, will Hound of Baskervilles be changed by the quite literal existence of hellhounds? What fun is there in a mystery that can be solved by a psychic or a soothsayer? These aren’t simple deus ex machina (a ghost did it!) but a set of new rules to be applied in Crow’s deductive reasoning, a toolkit of lore, esoteric cultural knowledge, and occult psychology. You may know the outcomes of these stories in a general sense—but you’ve also never read stories quite like them. Add to this the uniting narrative of the Ripper case, and you’ve got yourself a Victorian mystery remix the likes of which I haven’t seen since steampunk’s heyday.
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The Angel of the Crows
The existence of angels and werewolves and etc. are not the only revisions at play in the novel. I should say, first, that I have described it as fanfic of Sherlock of late BBC fame rather than Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories because it draws clear story beats and charming allusions from and to its episodes. These subversions delighted me almost as much as the spooks and creatures. Crow tells Doyle that he values his opinion and intellect, for instance, and treats him as a partner rather than a hanger-on. This allows for a much different kind of relationship to develop, not to mention the growth it lends to each of their character arcs. As someone that was ultimately disappointed in BBC’s Sherlock (and here’s why), it was a pleasure to read a kinder, more developed version of these characters that didn’t sacrifice the thrill of deduction and a protagonist much smarter than his readers.
Note: Spoilers below!
Of course any review of Angel of the Crows would be incomplete without acknowledging its subversion of gender as well. Not only do we have a trans Watson/Doyle and an ambiguously gendered Holmes/Crow, but we have these delectable things without them mattering a single lick to the plot itself! No melodramatic outing, no overwrought transition backstory, just awkward transmasc energy for days. Their treatment of Doyle’s identity as a surprise/reveal may turn some readers off—which, fair enough—but as a trans reader myself, I loved being fooled into misinterpreting Doyle’s transness as a wolf/hound transformation (trans guys are werewolves; don’t ask me to explain myself), and I loved that there was no real “reason” for the reveal, it was for its own sake. It’s nice to have a story featuring a trans character that doesn’t focus on their transition or their pain.
All of that being said, there’s quite a lot in Angel of the Crows that exists for its own sake and that did ultimately leave me feeling less in love than I otherwise might have been. There are moments where the fourth wall is—maybe not broken, but certainly questioned—and where canonical material is referenced in a rather leading way, and I often felt as if these moments were going to build into some kind of meta-commentary or universe-bending reveal—something otherwise bigger than the mystery stories in-and-of themselves. But the novel just… never goes there. It is very much just itself. You get what you paid for.
And I like what I paid for. The novel is utterly bizarre, for one thing. The stories are amusing and thrilling, and they fully function as the pastiches of Victorian story-telling that they aspire to. The heroes are the best sort of charmingly-flawed outcasts, and I could go on for days about what a sweetheart this interpretation of Sherlock is. But—especially as a novel, not as a collection of disparate stories—there could have been more meat to it, more substance, more to say. Besides not doing anything to break the form, timeline, or narrative, there aren’t any real themes so much as motifs—various instances of the harm of gender roles and imperialism, but no throughline of commentary. It bothered me less in the heat of the reading process, and more in hindsight and in the final 20 pages or so, which was when I expected the motifs to be brought together somehow. The resolution of the Jack the Ripper case certainly didn’t prove enough of a unifier, however riveting its final scene may be.
Perhaps it’s a problem of form. If this had been presented to me as a collection of stories, I might not have had the same concerns. And—I’ll be honest—if I’d read it on AO3, I probably wouldn’t either. But regardless of what form it might take, I’d absolutely read a sequel to The Angel of the Crows (Addison certainly leaves room for one). There’s a reason these characters and stories are so enduring, after all, and these reimaginings only add to the delight.
The Angel of the Crows is available from Tor Books.
Em Nordling reads and writes in Louisville, KY.
You mentioned who the killer is before the spoiler line.
At least this author is going full-tilt fanfic and acknowledges it. Most fiction with Sherlock Holmes and other famous out-of-copyright franchises is nothing more than a marketing ploy. A Sherlock Holmes story about Holmes, a female Holmes, a relative of Holmes, etc., makes people want the book. A Victorian detective is rarely as successful.
@MByerly: The fact that a killer is “Jack the Ripper” isn’t a spoiler because Jack the Ripper is a pseudonym.
@The Review: I agree a lot with this review – as I said in my own at my blog, I loved the character work and setting work in this world, but found the individual stories themselves kind of a disappointment, as there is literally no change at all to any of the culprits, and while I was familiar with only half of the stories, it soon became rather predictable what was going to happen. Most of the cases are expanded enough to be still interesting, but some aren’t (The Speckled Band is just thrown in there and has basically no notable changes at all for some reason) and the Jack the Ripper ending felt really really rushed and pointless.
But again, I loved Doyle and I loved Crow, and I would gladly read more about them, as well as the Moriartys and their vampire ways, and heck if we could find out more about the radical Angels of Madrid, I’d love that too. I really hope this isn’t a stand alone.
Gosh, I love this awesome review! I enjoyed the book myself, and although I wasn’t that blown away as I hoped I would be, I really liked reading this. Especially because I got attached to the characters! Doyle and Crow’s chemistry is just so good, and the casual queer representation (which I did not expect but I certainly loved!) was just amazing!
Also, I am not a fan of Sherlock (because I haven’t read the books or watched movies, not because I don’t like it lol), but knowing this started as a Sherlock wingfic was just awesome.
I finished reading the book yesterday, and I’m basically 100% with you, Nordling, and you, garik16.
This detour into Holmes fan/wingfic was not without its rewards, and I enjoyed it immensely, like I enjoy everything that comes from La Monette-Addison.
But I probably would have preferred a Booth sequel, on the Monette side, or the much promised Ethuveraz sequel on the Addison one.
I was particularly delighted with the Watson revelation, however. Partly, because as a jaded reader I love to be surprised, and it did surprise me in the best possible way –that is, it did not come out of nowhere, it had been cleverly foreshadowed in many subtle details, and it wasn’t just something tacked on; it felt as much a part of the character as anything else. Also, because it comes out in the most poignant scene in the book. Nobody does restrained poignancy like Monette-Addison. A gesture, a couple of words, and you’re in tears.
As an aside –is there anything about the faults of the BBC Sherlock that is not a 2-hour YouTube video? A transcript or something?
P.S. A lifelong insomniac myself (I was a creepy sleepless baby, and have the memories to prove it), I’m fascinated by Ms. Monette-Addison descriptions of the condition.If she is not a tosser-and-turner herself, she has researched it to a fault. I don’t think there is a single protagonist in her books (and I have read them all) that is not saddled with insomnia –which is an interesting choice. Just putting it out there.