The new novel by NBA All-Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, starring brothers Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes.It is 1872, and a series of gruesome murders is the talk of London. Mycroft Holmes–now twenty-six and a force to be reckoned with at the War Office–has no interest in the killings; however, his brother Sherlock has developed a distasteful fascination for the macabre to the detriment of his studies, … detriment of his studies, much to Mycroft’s frustration.
When a ship carrying cargo belonging to Mycroft’s best friend Cyrus Douglas runs aground, Mycroft persuades Sherlock to serve as a tutor at the orphanage that Douglas runs as a charity, so that Douglas might travel to see what can be salvaged. Sherlock finds himself at home among the street urchins, and when a boy dies of a suspected drug overdose, he decides to investigate, following a trail of strange subterranean symbols to the squalid opium dens of the London docks.
Meanwhile a meeting with a beautiful Chinese woman leads Mycroft to the very same mystery, one that forces him to examine the underbelly of the opium trade that is enriching his beloved Britain’s coffers.
As the stakes rise, the brothers find that they need one another’s assistance and counsel. But a lifetime of keeping secrets from each other may have catastrophic consequences…
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Here is a Victorian London both as seamy as you could wish for and more diverse than you might expect, through which Sherlock Holmes’s smarter older brother strides with sleek authority, solving a tantalising mystery (with just a little help from his sibling). Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has scored another slam-dunk Holmesian hit.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and his partner in crime novels Anna Waterhouse made it to my ‘authors I must read’ list when I was less than halfway through their first novel, MYCROFT HOLMES. They have embraced the Holmes saga and made it their own by bringing to light the early years of Mycroft and his younger brother Sherlock. Although these are not the first books Jabbar has written (he has quite a few to his name), they are his first attempts at fiction. In an interview that you can find on You Tube, he explains why he sought a collaborator. He needed someone to complement his ideas with dialog. As a screenwriter, Anna Waterhouse fit the bill perfectly. Their collaboration speaks for itself.
Anyone who reads or watches the tales of Sherlock Holmes are familiar with his brother Mycroft despite being the enigmatic figure who prefers to go unnoticed as he wields his brilliance in the back rooms of state. The recognized quirks of the brothers Holmes are well established in the tales of Arthur Conan Doyle, and we accept them at face value without speculating too much upon their origins.
The original images provided of Sherlock Holmes came to us from Sydney Paget. From these we get our first glimpse of the man in the deerstalker hat, the man smoking his pipe, and also a portrait of a portly Mycroft. (Google is your friend!) Now, for the first time, we can get a picture of the brothers as young men still finding their place in the world.
MYCROFT AND SHERLOCK takes place two years after MYCROFT HOLMES so Mycroft is now 26 and Sherlock just shy of his 19th birthday.
To succeed, a Holmes tale must be carefully crafted. Every item, no matter how small, must ultimately be linked to the solution of the case. In MYCROFT AND SHERLOCK, it was also necessary to point to the habits and characteristics for which the two men would eventually become known. Doing this reveals the spark of genius behind these books.
Without going into detail, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t make mention of the rather strict social aspects of Victorian England. Those of us drawn to reading about this era know it as a time of great forward movement in science and technology and of immense disparity between the classes. The Holmes brothers are the perfect example of the difference between class hierarchy and personal relationships. Human beings can intellectually ‘know their place’ while at the same time break out of those confines to find lasting friendships anyone and everyone.
MYCROFT AND SHERLOCK deserves a place of honor in your collection of tales by those of Arthur Conan Doyle. It does, in some ways, surpass even the originator of the Holmesian myth.
A better than worthy successor to an extraordinary debut, Mycroft and Sherlock plunges Douglas, Mycroft, and his impossibly abrasive teen brother Sherlock into a dark conspiracy in which the mutilated corpses of Chinese immigrants are somehow tied to the disappearance of a narcotics-addicted street urchin. Told with sublime historical detail, keen plotting, and a warm heart, this marvelous sequel grants us new glimpses into the life of a young, vibrant, brilliant Mycroft Holmes.
Excellent!
This is the second book in the Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock series and it can be read as a stand-alone. There are some references to what happened in the previous book but nothing to make you think that you missed anything. Anna Waterhouse stated on Goodreads that they wanted these books to be able to read as stand-alone even though they are part of a series.
They do not leave England in this book. I do not know why the synopsis states that they do because they most certainly do not.
This book may not have been as action-packed at the first but you see more depth in the characters. You see the beginning of why Mycroft and Sherlock are the way they are in the Conan Doyle stories. I like how Douglas’s dream in the first book to open a home for boys happens and how he is using his profits from shipping cargo to sustain it.
I foresee bigger things happening in the third book since this book looks like it is setting up for what is to come.
I can not wait to pick up the third one and I am so happy that my library has it as an ebook!
Queen Victoria charges Mycroft with an impossible mission while a 19-year-old Sherlock investigates his first case; the death of a young boy; supposedly an opium addict, but Sherlock’s acumen tells him otherwise. The two stories twist around each other until cleverly tangling into one. The fractious brothers are a Victorian Odd Couple, bickering and competing their way into the darkest corners of London’s drug trade. The book is smart, fun and paced like a 100-meter sprint. Mycroft and Sherlock is a worthy addition to the Sherlock Holmes legend and lore.