DUST AND SHADOW

Even though my main sources of entertainment these days tend to be television and old comic books, I still find time for the occasional prose novel here and there if it tickles my fancy. And watching all those episodes of SHERLOCK recently got me in the mood to read some Sherlock Holmes. I've read all the original Doyle works before, though I would have no problem checking most any of them out again -- but in the third season premiere of SHERLOCK, a reference was made to Jack the Ripper, and it got me wondering if anyone had ever produced a story in which Holmes attempted to solve the grisly Whitechapel murders.

So I Googled the matter and found that, sure enough, there have been a number of Holmes vs. Jack stories over the years, both written and on film. The one work that really caught my attention was a novel titled DUST AND SHADOW: AN ACCOUNT OF THE RIPPER KILLINGS BY DR. JOHN H. WATSON. The book was written by Lyndsay Faye, and every review I saw said that she captured the spirit and voice of the original Doyle works near perfectly. I downloaded the first chapter to my Kindle app and was hooked immediately, so I quickly went ahead and purchased the full book.

Be Warned: Some minor spoilers follow from this point.

SHERLOCK

At the recommendation of my brother, a close friend, and a great deal of the internet, my fiancée and I began watching the BBC's SHERLOCK recently. Having only two seasons/series comprised of only six 90-minute episodes each, catching up was not difficult. We're now ready for PBS to begin airing season 3 on January 19th here in the U.S.

I had heard good things about this series for some time, but could never convince myself to give it a chance. I have a very specific opinion of what Sherlock Holmes should be (I like the Robert Downey Jr. movies somewhat, but only when I tell myself it's not the "real" Holmes).

The first and biggest hurdle for me is that I was not keen on the idea of Holmes living in the modern day. The Victorian London setting is a huge part of the character's appeal for me. You can imagine how hard I've avoided CBS's ELEMENTARY, considering that it moves Holmes geographically to the U.S., sets him in the modern day, and performs a gimmicky gender-swap on Watson on top of its other crimes against the property!