Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell
4.76 Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell has a brilliant premise: Sherlock Holmes gets a the ultimate locked room mystery to solve: one where the disappearance is caused by none other than the cenobites from Clive Barker's Hellraiser mythos called forth from the Lament Configuration puzzle box. I am not a huge Barker or Hellraiser fan, and in fact beyond the original movie (seen like a billion years ago) and a short story here and there using either the Hellraiser world or references to it, I only know the basics – like that solving the puzzle box causes some seriously scary dudes from Hell to come pay a visit, etc. – and I am not a fan of Barker's gory horror, but I like the concept of Barker's Hell, so for me there was some real promise here. Especially when I realized that this was written in the style of a Conan-Doyle novel – a true mystery told by John Watson about a grand adventure. I think that as cool as this idea was that there was so much that could go wrong and that bringing these two worlds together was a real risk. Happily, Kane does an amazing job in Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell. The book reads, mostly, like a traditional Holmes story. Narrated by Watson, it is referential to the Holmes oeuvre, as a typical Conan-Doyle story would be, and the voice is authentic. The portions where Holmes enters Hell and references to Hellraiser were brilliantly done – at least from this non-expert's POV. (I did hear Kane is a Hellraiser subject matter expert, so I will put my money on accuracy in this regard anyway). It was gory, but not needlessly so – though do expect some gore – and seemed to explore the stuff I find coolest about Hellraiser (and The Hell-Bound Heart) like the puzzle box and what the story is with Hell. Most impressively, in my opinion, was how well Kane weaves in the Holmes backstory into this novel. He makes the intersection of Holmes and Hellraiser incredibly plausible – this feels more or less, for most of the novel at least, like something that could have happened in a Conan-Doyle novel. Interestingly, I feel that Kane does a better job explaining Holmes' revival from the dead and after-effects of said more plausibly than Conan-Doyle did. And all the familiar characters make an appearance – for example, notably both Moriarty and Mycroft have parts to play. Which for Holmes fans is kind of neat – or at least for me was neat. I found the ending too absurd – far too much was going on for my liking, though that may be just me being a non Barker fangirl. (Unfortunately I can't be more detailed lest I spoil a thing). Nonetheless I would say read this right away if you even causally like Sherlock (you will be happy to be in on any new adventure) or Hellraiser (because, seriously, how awesome is this premise?). Buy, borrow, or burn? Buy.
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