James Lovegrove: Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon [Spotlight]

“There’s a literary tradition going back to Victorian times of equating Christmas with ghosts…”

A Sherlock Holmes novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin. and the Firefly novel Big Damn Hero.

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client: Eve Allerthorpe—eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty—is greatly distressed, as she believes she’s being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.

Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card...

Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something—or someone—is threatening her sanity. Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover that there is more to the case than at first appeared.

There is another spirit haunting the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realise that no one is beyond suspicion…

Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon
James Lovegrove
Publisher
Categories: Cozy Culinary Mysteries, Occult Fiction, Historical Mystery

Buy Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon from Amazon

Interview

“It was my wife who suggested I should try writing something set at Christmas,” Lovegrove told Risingshadow. “She gets much more excited about the season than I do. I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to do a Sherlock Holmes story involving ghosts and other supernatural happenings—outside my Conan Doyle/Lovecraft mashup trilogy The Cthulhu Casebooks, that is. After all, there’s a literary tradition going back to Victorian times of equating Christmas with ghosts, from Dickens to M.R. James and beyond. Something, I reckon, to do with it being the darkest, coldest time of year, with real shivers to match emotional ones. That was my goal with Christmas Demon: to create a proper Holmes story with an overlay of ghostliness.”

Reviews

“SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CHRISTMAS DEMON is a seasonal Holmes novel written by master of Holmes characterization, James Lovegrove. James Lovegrove has proven several times over that he writes a convincing Holmes and Watson, from his straightforward Holmes pastiche series, to a crossover between the Conan Doyle novels and Lovecraft in the Cthulu Casebooks. This novel is a pure pastiche, in the style of the former series, but is unrelated to it; it can be read completely on its own.”—Crime Review

“This was an entertaining book and Lovegrove emulates the world created by Doyle with wit, atmospheric archaic detail and intelligence. A pacey, witty, mystery adventure honouring Doyle’s creative genius in a way only good writers can. It certainly felt like Christmas had come early when I read this book – with huge thanks to Sarah & Titan Books for being my early Santa!”—Books. Tea. And me.

“I thought the author did a good job with this mystery, which kept me guessing and thoroughly entertained. I suspect Lovegrove enjoyed breathing new life into the Sherlock Holmes mystery series and I for one truly enjoyed reading it!”—Welcome to the Book Review

About the Author

James Lovegrove is the author of over 60 acclaimed works of fiction, which have sold all over the world and been translated into 16 languages. His works include the Cthulhu Casebooks series, the Pantheon series, and novels set in the world of Firefly.

He has also produced numerous Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. These include The Stuff Of Nightmares, Gods Of War, The Thinking Engine, The Labyrinth of Death and The Devil’s Dust, along with the Cthulhu Casebooks, a trilogy mashing up the fictional worlds of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft. His latest Holmes offerings are Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon, Sherlock Holmes and the Beast of the Stapletons, a continuation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Sherlock Holmes and the Three Winter Terrors.

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