Book Review: Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War
Gods of War
By James Lovegrove
This novel is set in 1913, and starts us off with Watson visiting Holmes’ retirement cottage at Eastbourne. Of course, you’re never allowed a holiday if you’re a detective or his loyal friend – not even if you’re retired. And so our dynamic duo have to investigate the death of a local bigwig’s son. The father insists that it was suicide, but things are never that simple.
I found Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War very entertaining and readable with all the ingredients for a fun pastiche. Since Holmes and Watson are older and the setting is a small town, it has a definite Miss Marple vibe, which I found enjoyable. Combining Holmes with the suspicion of supernatural forces being at work is also nearly always a good set-up for a plot. And so we are off to a classic whodunit full of well-drawn characters and some great plot twists. It places Holmes and Watson in unfamiliar territory place- and age-wise—by the way, I have to commend the atmosphere of the period here—while preserving the dynamic and loyalty of the pair that we all know and love.
I am an unashamed fan of the Mary Russell series, so I appreciate a well-written older Holmes but even more so a well-written older Watson, and Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War delivered on both counts. I also enjoyed imagining Holmes’ retired life in a tiny town.
While the novel obviously incorporates the historical background and the coming of war, it does so without being overly preachy or maudlin about it. The solution of the mystery let me down a little bit, but solutions to mysteries nearly always do that to me – the journey itself was definitely good fun for reasons detailed above.
It’s set by the seaside and is the story of a failed holiday, so maybe that’s why it strikes me as a good Sherlockian beach read, but I will recommend it even if you’re not going to the sea this summer, as it is very enjoyable at any distance from the ocean.
Sherlock Holmes: Gods of War is available from all good bookshops, and also on Kindle.
Ardy is thirtysomething. Librarian. Transplanted German. Anglophile. Lover of tea and scones (and, yes, jam. I also own ridiculous jumpers).