The Angel of The Crows by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette).

[jack]

"Sherlock, but Make Him Likable and Also a not-quite-fallen Angel" I stole that from a review on Tor.

The book does an AMAZING job at showing the relationship between Doyle (based on Watson) and Crow. From Watson's point of view, it is at least as much about him, even though insightful but at right-angles to humanity Crow is the most distinctive character.

It does a great job remixing the original setting to a world where angels (of buildings), werewolf communities, seances, rogue demons in the Afghanistan war etc are a normal part of life. The remixed mysteries are all familiar, but MAKE SENSE with the rules of the world.

It also does a good job of showing different sorts of people (different nationalities, different ethnicities, different genders, different cistransness) who existed in society without replicating Victorian prejudices, but mostly successfully expressed through non-anachronistic viewpoints.

The only other thing I wanted was more of it: not character, more setting. The framing story about Jack the Ripper is a good hook but isn't as interesting as the individual episodes, and I was impatient for More.

Comments

[redbird]

I also liked this book, and that frame story may be Sarah Monette using research she did over the years because she's interested in the subject, both in the murders and in the various people who have researched that story, their more or less plausible theories about those murders, and how this has changed over time.

[enismirdal]

I really enjoyed this book too. I like most Monette stuff, to be honest - even when it's technically a little cliche or awkward, she has a way of sucking me in and making me love the characters with such a strong love it doesn't matter. The books are easy to pick up and hard to put down!