Holmes and Houdini Review

“Holmes and Houdini” by I. A. Watson (and was there ever a better-named author to write a Sherlock Holmes story?) has definitely earned a place on the list of my favourite new Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s well-written, has an interesting premise, a good plot, and enough twists and turns to keep the reader engaged. But then, it’s I. A. Watson, whose regular Sherlock Holmes stories, including the wonderfully horrible “Season of Madness,” are definitely a high-point in Airship 27’s line-up.

The idea of a cross-over between fictional hero Sherlock Holmes and real-life person Harry Houdini is an interesting, but also intimidating one. In the novel, the connection is made through Arthur Conan Doyle himself, who is shown as Watson’s literary agent and also knows Harry Houdini and his manager Martin Beck. In reality, Doyle and Houdini were acquaintances, but drifted apart later on over the topic of spiritualism. Doyle became a believer in his later years, whereas Houdini spent a lot of time proving it was nothing more than trickery. It’s clear which side Sherlock Holmes would have taken, of course.

Due to the different players in the story, there are several viewpoints and, in a way, it’s Dr. Watson whose viewpoint (classic first-person past tense) sticks out a little, since all other viewpoints (Holmes, Houdini, Beck, for a short spell also a Newgate guard) are written in more regular third-person past tense. Nevertheless, the story is well-written and the changes in viewpoint are always clear.

The story also easily conjures up the big bad of Sherlock Holmes lore, Professor James Moriarty, eleven years after his fateful dive into the Reichenbach Falls. Not by bodily bringing him back, but by making his late revenge on Sherlock Holmes an important plot point. It also gives Colonel Moran the chance of shooting a few more people, which is nice. It’s not him who Houdini and Holmes are after, though, it’s a cabal of rich people who enjoy the unusual pastime of hunting humans. Their intended target is Houdini, who has a few things to say about that, of course. The Far Edge Club would have done better choosing another target - and taking a closer look at their own members, as it turns out in the end.

But I. A. Watson also makes good use of having real people in his story by reminding the audience of the Boer War and the first-ever concentration camps in history (just as horrible and deadly, although the Germans did it even worse in their efficiency). It’s a nice touch to give a real-life explanation for the villain’s deeds, because it gives said villain more depth.

The different plot threads are kept together very well, introducing the readers through the expected and familiar Watson perspective and only shifting much later, to set the other threads in motion. There’s Houdini’s thread, keeping the Far Edge Club from killing him while still turning up for his public appearances and searching for the necessary information to bring his hunters down. There’s Beck’s thread, knowing that something is going on, but being kept in the dark and forced to look for information himself. There’s Holmes’ thread, following the leads of the hints left inside Moriarty’s death mask and then hunting down those who have threatened the lives of innocent children to take the original manuscript of Moriarty’s second book off his hands. And there’s Watson’s thread, being the gallant knight again and finding a third wife in the process.

Another big plus of the story are the prominent women - they have their agenda and are far from just being damsels in distress who need saving. I’m not saying more about any of them, because it would ruin the story, but they all play their roles perfectly.

The story is well-told and has a lot of twists and turns. The author also proves very good at bringing all of the threads together towards the end, letting them merge one by one, until he’s back to the classic Watson perspective. And while being in the heads of Houdini and Holmes might diminish the mystery somewhat, as their knowledge is available to the reader, the story is written so that doesn’t matter, because there’s many possible culprits and the looming danger of what an escaped Sebastian Moran might be doing and to whom. After all, he was caught trying to kill Holmes before. I was invested in the story from beginning to end and that’s not always the case - some stories do need a few pages or even a chapter or two to get my complete attention. Even the occasional story by I. A. Watson.

Of course, the novel-length is a lot of help in this case, too, since it allows for the story to be more complicated and include more plot threads. It also allows for a larger number of characters, which in turn allows for more suspects to this mystery. The switching viewpoints mean a lot of different things happening at once, keeping the readers engaged.

Characters are far more than paper cut-outs. There’s a lot of villainous characters in the story, which is only logical with several Far Edge Club members and their entourages on their hunt. They overshadow the real villain - or the master villain, if you want to put it that way - and that is good. Because the person with all of the thread in their hands is not just after Houdini, but after much more - after something which might or might not exist. Holmes, in the end, is sure it doesn’t exist, that the manuscript was a last act of revenge on him. The villain is sure that it exists and that they can force Sherlock Holmes to decode it for them.

“Holmes and Houdini” is a very interesting cross-over novel with two great leads and an excellent story. It’s a good read and full of twists and turns, as is to be expected from an Airship 27 story (they are pulp specialists, after all). The novel definitely gets two thumb-ups from me.