The difficulty with pastiche is when authors attempt to use well-loved characters created by another author. We always are conscious of the differences between how the originating author created his or her world, and how the successors create new stories within that world. This is nowhere more prevalent than with Sherlock Holmes. Few authors ever have been able to recreate the magic conjured by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but many have tried.

This is why it often seems a wiser move for an author, if they wish to write a Victorian mystery novel featuring two strong characters – one an enigmatic superman and the other a brave and doughty lad – simply to start from scratch and come up with entirely new characters. This is what Will Thomas has done with Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn in his series, the newest novel of which is THE HELLFIRE CONSPIRACY.

Barker and Llewelyn have their own characterizations, of course; they’re not perfect clones of the men who inhabited 221B Baker Street. But there are enough similarities that should please those who like the Holmes stories and the Victorian environment. Thomas does an excellent job of explaining the often odd historical byways of that time, and he ably convinces the reader about his minor characters, providing them with honest motivations and reasonable behaviors.

THE HELLFIRE CONSPIRACY concerns a horrific and sordid case of child abduction, molestation and murder. Barker is brought into the case by a missing girl’s father, and our detective soon stumbles on a chain of similar abductions. When this is matched with the odd behavior of an aristocratic set who are intent on keeping the age of consent set to 13 years old (yes, 13), Barker and Llewelyn are dragged further into the moral morass.

Thomas rips through this story, engendering sympathy and disgust at all the proper moments. He even introduces historical characters – a practice I normally abhor, but he does it well without too much of the “Look at me! I’m an actual person from history!” element that afflicts so much historical fiction.

If you have a soft spot for Victorian mysteries, or were born and raised on PBS and BBC detective shows, then Thomas’ entire series from THE LIMEHOUSE TEXT to TO KINGDOM COME to SOME DANGER INVOLVED to THE HELLFIRE CONSPIRACY will fit nicely on your bookshelves. –Mark Rose

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE LIMEHOUSE TEXT by Will Thomas