This Villain Really Is a Monster

One of the most common angles in the world of Sherlockian pastiche is to pit Holmes and Watson against another famous figure of literature or history. Sometimes it works.

Holmes doing battle against Dracula, Jack the Ripper, or the Phantom of the Opera no longer evokes surprise -- although a fresh approach to such a familiar theme certainly evokes admiration. The prolific young writer Luke Benjamen Kuhns and artist Marcie have chosen the road less traveled by in their graphic novel Sherlock Holmes and the Horror of Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously on Jan. 1, 1818. That puts the story almost three generations earlier than the first Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet. But the Frankenstein monster, like Holmes in "The final Problem," never provided a corpse. He was last seen floating away on an ice raft.

Fast forward to London, 1888. Inspector Bradstreet, who appears in three of the Adventures, asks Holmes to investigate a case of murder and grave robbing. Only the bodies have been stolen -- none of their valuables -- and all of the bodies were female. Guess who's looking for a bride?

It's a good story with a nice pace, true to the Gothic spirit of the original. And some of the illustrations are downright haunting.This is one I'll be reading again.