Sherlock Holmes and the Affair in Transylvania

O'Hara makes only minimal changes to the plot of Stoker's Dracula, while lifting scenes and dialogue wholesale from it, in this subpar pastiche that unconvincingly introduces the supernatural into the hyper-rational Baker Street universe. Essentially Holmes takes over Van Helsing's role after Watson's niece, Mina, asks for help locating her vanished husband, Janos Svbado, the Jonathan Harker stand-in, who's unaccounted for after a visit to Dracula's castle. Holmes and Watson journey to Transylvania, where they have the exact same encounters with wolves and a mysterious coachman that Harker did in the original, before meeting the vampire-king himself. Unlike authors like Loren Estleman or Fred Saberhagen, O'Hara doesn't even attempt to have Holmes wrestle with a phenomenon outside his experience, and implausibly has the great detective adopting the use of garlic and other wards against the undead without batting a deerstalker. Unfortunately, the best-written passages are lifted directly, and without attribution, from Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," and the author rushes the final showdown between Holmes and Dracula, robbing it of any dramatic power. (Nov.)