Admittedly, "Fierce Poison" reads like author Will Thomas wrote one of those latter-day novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson but then someone pointed out that Nicholas Meyer ("The Seven-Per-Cent Solution") is already doing that, so he took a red pen to his manuscript, changed all the names and popped it off to a publisher. But is that necessarily a bad thing?
The Victorian mystery is devilish: a string of murders by fast-acting poison, some of which take place right under the nose of Holmes — er, Cyrus Barker. And Thomas' let's-call-them-homages to Arthur Conan Doyle characters, including a sharp-tongued but maternal maid and the doctor's long-suffering wife, are both amusing and cozily familiar.
Chris Hewitt is a critic and writer at the Star Tribune.
Fierce Poison
By: Will Thomas.
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 304 pages, $27.99.
