Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein's Diary (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Severn))
The story so far: Sherlock Holmes, the world’s most famous consulting detective, long presumed dead, was unfrozen from a glacier in the modern day; with his new sidekick, journalist James Wilson, Holmes continues to solve crimes whose mind-boggling nature only he can penetrate. This time out, the apparent murder of an animal-rights activist leads Holmes and Wilson into a devilishly complex plot involving a widely disliked media mogul (an obvious stand-in for Rupert Murdoch) and a scientist whose research is either cutting edge or certifiably insane, depending on your point of view. Grant never plays these stories for laughs, although, as with Conan Doyle’s originals, there is humor in them. This fourth in the series comes closest to spoofing the source material, but it never quite gets there, remaining, like its predecessors, a nicely written, cleverly constructed mystery starring a character that genuinely feels like the original S. Holmes, albeit in modern dress. Fans of the abundance of Holmes spin-offs and tie-ins will definitely want to check this series out, if they haven’t already. --David Pitt