cover image Barefoot on Baker Street

Barefoot on Baker Street

Charlotte Anne Walters. MX Publishing (www.mxpublishing.co.uk), $19.95 (380p) ISBN 978-1-78092-012-2

The author's dedication to revising the personalities of every major character in the Sherlock Holmes Canon results in a muddle in this romantic Victorian crime thriller. Much of the book is told in the voice of Red, an orphan who fights back against the cruelty of her workhouse, ultimately killing one of her persecutors in self-defense. The narrative leaps forward in time, surprising the reader by now presenting the heroine as the wife%E2%80%94and criminal partner%E2%80%94of Professor James Moriarty, depicted as an obsessive savant. Red's path soon crosses that of Holmes and Watson, first as an apparent member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and then as the "real" criminal in Doyle's "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." Almost no character, be it Irregular leader Wiggins or the accused in the Blue Carbuncle, John Horner, escapes being portrayed in a harshly negative light, and the frenetic story line isn't helped by unconvincing romance scenes that read like fan fiction. (Nov.)