Jack The Ripper: Newly Discovered Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Full disclosure: I haven’t read all of this. In fact, I got halfway through the third chapter - that’s as far as the Kindle sample goes. My curiosity was enough to make me invest a few minutes, but no money. Not having really read it, I can’t tell you how good or bad the twists and turns of the plot might have been. I can’t say if the ending was good. I’m not judging “how good a story” this is, for a simple reason: The author used the characters of Holmes and Watson - or at least their names. If you put Sherlock Holmes’ name on the cover of your book, prepare for it to be judged for “how good a SHERLOCK HOLMES story” it is. Sadly, they don’t allow negative stars in the ratings. The few minutes that I invested told me all I need to know. First and foremost, the “Holy Ghost Writer”, as the author calls himself(?), HAS NEVER READ A SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY. Not one. Maybe he thought the Guy Ritchie film (Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law) taught him all he needed to know. There are two people named Holmes and Watson. Beyond that, all similarity ends. The narrative is in third person, and full of Americanisms. The characters might have been plucked from a modern police procedural show. A bad one. We begin with a contrived childhood scene for the Ripper’s first victim, Mary Ann Nichols. Her mother was apparently earning her living the same way Mary Ann eventually did - but in the midst of the crushing poverty of Whitechapel around 1870, this poor and desperate streetwalker is described as wearing “her best silk dress.” And drinking bourbon, as well as pouring it for her customers - where are we, Kentucky? Flash forward to 1888, and Mary Ann has followed her mother’s profession, as well as her taste for expensive imported American spirits. Then she meets the wrong man in an alley, and we all know what happens... In chapter two the police discover the body, and then we skip to Holmes and Watson talking about it. Scotland Yard shows up in the person of Inspector Vincent Grant (who?), who Holmes’ HOUSEKEEPER, MRS PARKER, LEADS THROUGH THE HOUSE TO THE STUDY. Usually the landlady, Mrs Hudson, shows them up the seventeen steps to the sitting room, but not today!! Uncharacteristically, Holmes does NOT greet the Inspector by observing that he had a fight with his wife (coat not brushed), he slept late that morning (didn’t shave), and his cat has a headache. No, he merely offers him a seat and coffee. Then “The men discussed some of the particulars of the case...”. In a Sherlock Holmes story, the “particulars” must NEVER be glossed over! The reader is given every fact, all the same ones Holmes gets, even the irrelevant ones - that’s fair play in mystery writing. So Inspector Grant invites Holmes to come view the body at the morgue (but not Dr Watson, the medical man!). No, visiting the crime scene isn’t mentioned - who would want to see something icky like that? They should just go ahead and clean up that mess anyway, before it attracts flies - or starving cats... Then, while visiting Scotland Yard Holmes muses that GRANT’S OFFICE USED TO BE HIS OWN, EIGHT YEARS BEFORE WHEN HOLMES HAD BEEN A PART OF SCOTLAND YARD... “before he retired from the establishment and started taking on only the cases that most interested him.” Hello! I perceive that you have never been to 221B Baker Street, nor have you ever read a Sherlock Holmes story! In which case I would implore “Holy Ghost Writer”: Please, PLEASE, don’t try to write one! EVER AGAIN!! And you, dear reader of this review - save your money for something better. Like the label on a dog food can. I already took one for the team. Note to the reader: If you haven’t read it already, I recommend “People of the Abyss,” by Jack London - a firsthand account of what the soul-crushing poverty of Whitechapel was really like.