Nocturnal Book Reviews

This is a pretty fun combination of famous bloodlines, which reminded me ironically of Starsky & Hutch.

Alvermina Holmes is a niece of Sherlock Holmes who is practicing the same methods of deduction as her famous uncle (and pretty successfully) at seventeen years of age. She is that very nerdy know-it-all type who likes to memorize street names and train schedules and experiment on things in her own laboratory.

Evaline Stoker is a very young, green vampire hunter, who is dying to prove herself and make her famous ancestor Victoria Gardella proud. She is also a sister to Bram Stoker who is writing his book about Dracula. She is rush, impulsive and impatient, a complete opposite to Mina or so it seems.

So when Irene Adler, another well known character from Sherlock Holmes books partners these two on an investigation into a disappearance and death of several young girls of the ton, their relationship starts as a total disaster.

It only takes a couple of near deaths and captures, few love interests, breaking and entering, sneaking into a ball, embroiling themselves into a secret society and plenty of bickering to end the book on a splendid tandem of Stoker & Holmes.

So why have I given it only 8 out of 10? Well, the plot is mostly great but there were couple of issues for me personally. First of all, there is a time traveller, Dylan, whose story is unnecessary and very underdevelopped. I felt like he really wasn't given his due as a character and was acting like a prop here and there. The same goes for Pix and inspector Grayling. They were very intriguing characters who were just not given any lime light, which was a shame.

Secondly, the switch between Stoker and Holmes points of view was often very confusing and abrupt, and it was taking me awhile to adapt to it.

At last, the ending itself left us not with a bang but with a whimper and with a lot of loose ends. I understand that it's all geared up for hooking the reader into the new series, but I'm not a fan of a book that doesn't sum up everything in the end nicely.

Otherwise, it's a nice read, which I recommend with few reservations.