I’m quickly becoming a Katherine Addison fan, having thoroughly enjoyed both The Goblin Emperor and its two psuedo-sequels, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones. Those lead me to her 2020 novel, The Angel of the Crows.
It was not at all what I expected. I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but a recasting of Sherlock Holmes where Holmes himself is an angel (wings and all) of ambiguous status, Watson is a hell-hound named Doyle, and Moriarty is a vampire was not on my bingo card.
It is–of course–derivative, and Doyle and the Angel revisit many of Holmes’ more famous cases, all the while also investigating the horrific activities of Jack the Ripper. But it works: the characters are somehow unique, in spite of their reliance on the source material, and the escapades never feel forced, or like they are constrained by Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings.
Addison describes The Angel of the Crows as having emerged from a particular sub-genre of fan fiction called wingfic, where a character in an existing is given wings, and things go from there.
It’s compelling and thoroughly enjoyable if you like Holmes, mysteries, and a dollop of fantasy.