Fire Storm: 01/09/19

Fire Storm by Andy Lane is the fourth of the Young Sherlock Holmes series. I accidentally skipped it when I read Snake Bite Book five opens in an unexpected location and I hoped going back to read book four would help me like book five better. It didn't.

Instead, I've come to realize that I'm done with this series. Although I'm a huge Holmsean pastiche fangirl, this series is not for me.

Lane is trying to show how Sherlock learned all the stuff that would later wow the pants off Watson. The thing is, Doyle already did that by building in the clues and method of solution into all of his stories. It's not that Sherlock doesn't have experts, he does. But they are experts who are colleagues, not teachers.

The first third of Fire Storm reads like a classic Doyle written story. Sherlock is made aware of a blackmail ring. He and Matty work together to follow the clues back to the source. They destroy the blackmailing business and the ringleader is arrested.

And then the story spirals out of control into a revenge fantasy plot. Sherlock's tutor and his daughter are missing. I don't like it when NCIS uses this plot. I don't like it here either.

Two stars

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