Sherlock Holmes inspired novels
January 22, 2022 2:05 PM Subscribe
I feel like reading something with a smart super-sleuth, the kind of novel overtly or covertly inspired by the Sherlock Holmes mystique. My favourite genres are SFF and romance, though mystery is obviously also fine. I'd rather avoid any machismo. Bonus points for actually strong female characters (not the Joss Whedon kind). (Riffs and parodies also ok if they're smart-silly.) Can you recommend any?
I think the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman is going to be right up your alley.
posted by congen at 2:12 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by congen at 2:12 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you like romance and Sherlock Holmes, you definitely want The Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas.
posted by the primroses were over at 2:14 PM on January 22, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by the primroses were over at 2:14 PM on January 22, 2022 [10 favorites]
A couple recent SFF Holmes pastiches/adaptations I enjoyed: Alexis Hall's The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (lady Sherlock Holmes, set in a cosmic horror-esque fantasy world, but with a fun and zippy tone) and A Study in Cyborgs by W. R. MacNeill (solarpunk SF take on Holmes, with both the Holmes and Watson characters as women).
posted by yasaman at 2:16 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by yasaman at 2:16 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Aliette de Bodard - The Tea Master and the Detective is an outright riff on Holmes, while Seven of Infinities has a murder but is also inspired by Lupin. Both are SFF with sentient spaceships and a Viet-inspired universe.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:18 PM on January 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:18 PM on January 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Anthony Horowitz is my favorite mystery writer. He writes mysteries that remind me a lot of Sherlock Holmes. Two them are actually Sherlock Holmes books, authorized by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate: The House of Silk and Moriarty.
Then he has 5 mysteries set in the modern time. Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders have a female protagonist, an editor at a publishing company in London, who solves the murders.
The other three are The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, and A Line to Kill.
I haven't read his Sherlock Holmes books yet, but the other five are all so smart and clever and wonderful, I could rave about them all day long.
posted by daikon at 2:21 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
Then he has 5 mysteries set in the modern time. Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders have a female protagonist, an editor at a publishing company in London, who solves the murders.
The other three are The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death, and A Line to Kill.
I haven't read his Sherlock Holmes books yet, but the other five are all so smart and clever and wonderful, I could rave about them all day long.
posted by daikon at 2:21 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
The Pendergast novels. Lengthy series with a clearly Holmes-inspired protagonist. I have not read the entire series. They're police/FBI procedural, with many of the volumes I've read having SFF aspects. They're intermittently violent and gruesome. Machismo shows up occasionally, but the Holmes-ian detective is not.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:37 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:37 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Another series that you might like is the Mary Russell books in the Russell & Holmes series especially if you chew through books because there are a lot of them. Basically she's Sherlock's wife and these books are mostly about her. That said, they are period pieces and some of the historical treatments are not what I would consider anti-racist.
posted by jessamyn at 2:44 PM on January 22, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 2:44 PM on January 22, 2022 [10 favorites]
I enjoyed the Mrs Hudson & Sherlock Holmes series by Liz Hedgecock (amazon link to book 1).
posted by eloeth-starr at 3:10 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eloeth-starr at 3:10 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
In The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison 19th century London is populated with vampires and werewolves, the great detective is a disgraced angel, and the narrator, his Watson, is [spoiler].
posted by moonmilk at 3:19 PM on January 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by moonmilk at 3:19 PM on January 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
The Charlotte Holmes books by Brittany Cavallero. Features a universe in which Holmes/Watson/Moriarty were real and have descendants, told from the POV's of a teenage female Holmes and a teenage boy Watson meeting at boarding school, whose uncle/father are best friends.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:37 PM on January 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:37 PM on January 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell series fits that bill I think
posted by Ftsqg at 3:39 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Ftsqg at 3:39 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
You might like the A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery Series by Vicki Delany.
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 3:58 PM on January 22, 2022
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 3:58 PM on January 22, 2022
It’s my pleasure to be able to the first to recommend Carole Nelson Douglas' Good Night, Mr. Holmes, "Winner of the American Mystery Award for Best Novel of Romantic Suspense, and the Romantic Times BookClub Award for Best Historical Mystery."
For the first 50 pages or so, I had trouble believing how good a writer she is.
posted by jamjam at 4:23 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
For the first 50 pages or so, I had trouble believing how good a writer she is.
posted by jamjam at 4:23 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Theodora Goss' Athena Club books (well, I've read the first one in the series at least) couldn't tick your boxes more. The Locus award winning The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter features one Mary Jekyll as the titular alchemist's daughter and protagonist and reinterprets many Victorian proto-SFF classics; Holmes and Watson appear in the supporting cast along with an ever-growing crew of interesting women.
posted by Superilla at 4:43 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Superilla at 4:43 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
While not directly sleuthy (more "be gay, do crimes"), E.W. Hornung's Raffles books were a sort of vague AU of the Holmes books, and Hornung was Doyle's brother-in-law. They're mostly short stories, with I think one novel toward the end, and it's kind of funny in that some of Doyle's later stories were influenced by what his brother-in-law was doing with Raffles, so there's some interesting synergy there. Witching Hill is a more Holmesian collection of stories by Hornung if Raffles doesn't do it for you. There's definitely a slashy energy in the Raffles stories between Raffles and his BFF Bunny Manders, if that makes a difference either way to you. (Also, warnings for period typical racism and anti-Semitism.)
posted by kitten kaboodle at 4:58 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by kitten kaboodle at 4:58 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
For everything except Holmes pastiche, the Steerswoman novels.
posted by clew at 6:28 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by clew at 6:28 PM on January 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
Ditto the Mary Russell and the Horowitz Holmes books.
For the Russell ones, the earlier ones are more mystery oriented and Holmes features more, the later ones are more adventure stories and Holmes features less.
I liked Moriarty better than House of Silk. They're standalone/not a series.
Quinn Fawcett did some Mycroft books that were ok.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar also has a Mycroft series I've not read that seems to be pretty well regarded.
posted by juv3nal at 6:34 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
For the Russell ones, the earlier ones are more mystery oriented and Holmes features more, the later ones are more adventure stories and Holmes features less.
I liked Moriarty better than House of Silk. They're standalone/not a series.
Quinn Fawcett did some Mycroft books that were ok.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar also has a Mycroft series I've not read that seems to be pretty well regarded.
posted by juv3nal at 6:34 PM on January 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Not a novel, but Science Fiction Grandmaster Isaac Asimov wrote 4 short stories/novelettes featuring an "extra-terrologist" (expert on alien worlds) named Wendell Urth, with whom the authorities consulted when they had unresolved mysteries. The character is very much modeled on Holmes, but cast into a scifi context. They are collected in 1968's Asimov's Mysteries, along with a dozen other mysteries he wrote.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:00 PM on January 22, 2022
posted by Sunburnt at 9:00 PM on January 22, 2022
Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 9:45 PM on January 22, 2022
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 9:45 PM on January 22, 2022
I found Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson by Lyndsay Faye to be excellent with strong characterization.
posted by sindark at 11:36 PM on January 22, 2022
posted by sindark at 11:36 PM on January 22, 2022
Response by poster: You are all The Best. I posted this with not enough to read, now I don't know where to start lol.
Thanks!
posted by Omnomnom at 12:44 AM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks!
posted by Omnomnom at 12:44 AM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
In books related to Holmes - I thought The House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby was very good.
Struggling to think of good suggestions for other really clever detectives, but wondering about Phyrne Fisher, where her deductive process is often concealed from the reader until the denouement. If you try her, I would skip the first one and start with the second, Flying too High, or even skip further to the one I think is the first of the really good ones, Away With the Fairies.
I wonder also if you would like The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. It's not fiction and there is no clever detective, but as it's about Jack the Ripper it's Holmes-adjacent, it centres strong women and tries to make them more than victims, and Rubenhold's own detective work in tracing the women is fascinating.
posted by paduasoy at 4:47 AM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Struggling to think of good suggestions for other really clever detectives, but wondering about Phyrne Fisher, where her deductive process is often concealed from the reader until the denouement. If you try her, I would skip the first one and start with the second, Flying too High, or even skip further to the one I think is the first of the really good ones, Away With the Fairies.
I wonder also if you would like The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. It's not fiction and there is no clever detective, but as it's about Jack the Ripper it's Holmes-adjacent, it centres strong women and tries to make them more than victims, and Rubenhold's own detective work in tracing the women is fascinating.
posted by paduasoy at 4:47 AM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Name Of The Rose - the protagonist isn't called Baskerville for nothing.
posted by vincebowdren at 12:02 PM on January 23, 2022
posted by vincebowdren at 12:02 PM on January 23, 2022
Back in the ‘90s a guy called Mark Frost wrote a couple of books—The List of 7 and The 6 Messiahs—which feature a young Arthur Conan Doyle as a character. I haven’t read them since shortly after they came out, so I’m not sure how well they age.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:44 PM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
I just today read about a graphic novel series called Watson and Holmes by Karl Bollers. Only two volumes from almost 10 years ago, but it looked pretty interesting.
"...bold re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic characters as African Americans living and operating in New York City's famous Harlem district. Watson, an Afghanistan war vet, works in an inner-city clinic; Holmes, a local P.I. who takes unusual cases..."
Also a strong second for The Angel of the Crows and Sherry Thomas's Charlotte Holmes.
posted by gideonfrog at 12:47 PM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
"...bold re-imagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic characters as African Americans living and operating in New York City's famous Harlem district. Watson, an Afghanistan war vet, works in an inner-city clinic; Holmes, a local P.I. who takes unusual cases..."
Also a strong second for The Angel of the Crows and Sherry Thomas's Charlotte Holmes.
posted by gideonfrog at 12:47 PM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh, that reminds me of Holmes on the Range &ff. The detective is an itinerant cowboy and the sidekick is his brother, and they stick with me because of how differently it turns out when Holmes doesn't have lashings of cultural capital. I haven't read all of them yet, I don't know how the Irene-analogue character is.
posted by clew at 2:37 PM on January 24, 2022
posted by clew at 2:37 PM on January 24, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:11 PM on January 22, 2022 [2 favorites]