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PRESS for Dust and Shadow:"One
of the reasons first-time
novelist Lyndsay Faye's energetic, charming and nicely atmospheric new
Holmes
pastiche, "Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr.
John
H. Watson," entertains so successfully is because she gets the critical
component—Watson's
voice—right….
She has, in fact, not only
an excellent ear for the spoken word, but also an eye for the
scene-setting
visual detail and a cinematic instinct for evocative gesture. (Given
the book's
camera-ready final scene, if this book hasn't already been optioned to
film,
I'll buy every agent in the Grill this Friday a drink.)
…Faye's book, however, really rises or
falls
on her ability to summon the spirits of Holmes and Watson. Her final
evocation
of a darker Holmes, more wounded by a life peering into mendacity,
greed and
passion than Conan Doyle—confident product of a confident
imperial age—perhaps
could have allowed, is a contemporary liberty that does her credit. In
the end,
she concedes Conan Doyle's "most notorious character" a bit more
humanity than did the creator himself."
“…Faye just delivers and delivers and keeps on
delivering,
turning in an astonishingly entertaining book almost steampunkish in
its
fantasticality, yet just enough grounded in the real world to not
offend the
sensibilities of those simply into Victoriana.” "Dust and Shadow is
a brilliant piece of work, a first novel, and one that smoothly
captures the
moods of late Victorian London and those fictional characters first
given life
by Doyle."
"This
is a well-written mystery and an excellent pastiche—an
unusual combination. Faye's love for Holmes is apparent on
every page, as is the enormous amount of research she put into her
first novel." —Publisher's Weekly "Faye's debut novel faithfully captures period flavor...Her greater achievement is using the Ripper case to present a more complex portrait of Holmes and his world." —Kirkus Reviews "Writing
effectively in Watson's voice, Faye is faithful to
both the Holmes oeuvre and the Ripper case, and she successfully evokes
1880s
London. The secondary characters are interesting and believable....
Given the
enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes and the quality of the prose,
this title
is strongly recommended for public libraries." "Faye
displays a superb grasp of the known facts about the murders, and she
effectively captures the vibrancy and squalor of the underclass in
late-nineteenth-century London.... Holmes, typically brilliant and
relentless,
unpeels layer after layer of confusion and deceit as the dramatic
tension
builds and bursts. Mystery aficionados, especially those with an
interest in
the Ripper murders, will find this work a worthy revisiting of the
case." "Sherlock
Holmes is Jack
the Ripper's mortal enemy, and never more so than in Lyndsay Faye's Dust and Shadow.
This first novel has bags of atmosphere. With a
great deal of skill, the fictional Holmes and Watson are carefully
woven into the weft and woof of the true-life Ripper story, and Holmes
becomes both the hunter and the hunted." "Dust and Shadow is
fast-moving fun. Lyndsay Faye has done a great job of
combining the romance of Sherlock Holmes's London with the menace of
Jack the Ripper." "A
well-written and atmospheric
adventure, Lyndsay Faye's excellent tale of the
Victorian period and
the clash of arch-foes Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes makes for
exciting
reading. Journey back in time to the gas-lit London of the
1880s in
search of the Whitechapel murderer. Come—the game
is afoot!”
—Stewart
P. Evans, co-author of Jack
the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates and Jack
the Ripper:
Letters from Hell —Daniel Stashower, Edgar award-winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl and Teller of Tales |
