Shane Peacock

Tundra Books

9780887768507

September 2007

250 pp

Whole book read

Read On? YES

Andrea Deakin sent me this Canadian winner of the 2008 Arthur Ellis Best Juvenile Crime Novel Award quite some time ago, but I only recently picked it up. And enjoyed it. It is well-written and well-paced, though on balance I would have preferred the narrative in a traditional past tense, rather than the rather stylised continuous present used by Peacock.
The dustjacket of Tundra’s hardback edition shows a detailed Victorian streetmap of central London on the reverse, and the city details in the story are amongst the features that make this an enthralling read.
Young Sherlock – depicted here at times almost like a Spiderman hero – sets out to prove a man wrongly accused of murder innocent of the crime. It’s a colourful tale involving crows, glass eyeballs and several quite harrowing scenes. For Conan Doyle aficionados there are familiars in the cast, including the name Lestrade.
The first book in a series.

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