#Titanuary #BookReview ‘The Case Of The Spellbound Child’ by Mercedes Lackey

About the book..

The fourteenth novel in the magical alternate history Elemental Masters series continues the reimagined adventures of Sherlock Holmes in a richly-detailed alternate 20th-century England.

While Sherlock is still officially dead, John and Mary Watson and Nan Killian and Sarah Lyon-White are taking up some of his case-load–and some for Lord Alderscroft, the Wizard of London.

Lord Alderscroft asks them to go to Dartmoor to track down a rumor of evil magic brewing there. Not more than four hours later, a poor cottager, also from Dartmoor, arrives seeking their help. His wife, in a fit of rage over the children spilling and spoiling their only food for dinner that night, sent them out on the moors to forage for something to eat. This is not the first time she has done this, and the children are moor-wise and unlikely to get into difficulties. But this time they did not come back, and in fact, their tracks abruptly stopped “as if them Pharisees took’d ’em.” The man begs them to come help.

They would have said no, but there’s the assignment for Alderscroft. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

But the deadly bogs are not the only mires on Dartmoor…

‘The Case Of The Spellbound Child’ is published in paperback and Kindle ebook on the 7th of January, and whilst anyone who knows my reading habits is aware of my love of seeing a series through from book 1, the synopsis of this one sounded so great I leapt straight in at number 14!

So there are 13 for me to catch up on, lucky me!

If this is your first time reading the ‘Elemental Masters’ series, it is an alternate Sherlockian timeline set in a world where magic, demons and ghosts are real.

We are given an introduction to this in the shape of Reg’s story, which opens the book. He is a recently made ghost and through reading about his short afterlife, we immediately get an inkling into what ghosts can-and cannot-do, the immediate perception of the place-London,early twentieth century-and where Holmes and the Irregulars fit.

This is a post-Reichenbach Falls story, which centers Watson, Mary,Sarah and Nan and their adopted daughter Suki as they battle elemental forces in a tale loosely based on Hansel and Gretel. Children are going missing and there is only one group of detectives brave enough to stop them…

Sherlock lurks in the background of this tale, with the emphasis on the mising children and returning them to their parents. I found it a charming read, I loved the notion of people being able to master the four elements (earth, wind, air and fire) and that there were wizarding masters!

The atmosphere is very fraught with danger and I can agree somewhat with other reviewers who found the use of colloquial speech -including some terms for sets of people which some readers may find offensive-got a bit much after a while. The ‘Cor Blimey guvnor!’ type of thing, if that makes sense, it causes something of a disconnect on occasions, but overall, I really did enjoy this cat and mouse chase which took the opportunity to reimagine Holmesian England, and be relevant in the case of children who are being used for nefarious purposes…

A Sherlock purist may find lots to disagree with here, but this reader is always ready to flag down a hansom, and leap on board a new mystery from modern writers.Titan have a wonderful back catalogue of Sherlockian delights ranging from steampunk Holmes, to Cthulhu fighting Holmes. Stayed tuned for more of these as I count down what could be the most miserable month of the year, in books which will engage, challenge and induce shivers!

About the author…

Mercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late 70’s she worked as an artist’s model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.

“I’m a storyteller; that’s what I see as ‘my job’. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that’s why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of ‘story pill’ — they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the ‘folk music’ of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.

“I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can’t ‘not’ write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a ‘high-tech’ science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL [‘There ain’t no such thing as free lunch’, credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the ‘evil magicians,’ something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.

“I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in ‘Burning Water’:

“There’s no such thing as ‘one, true way’; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good — they’re the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren’t willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race.”

Links-http://www.mercedeslackey.com/

Twitter @MercedesLackey @TitanBooks