Sherlock Holmes & Mr. Hyde: The Classified Dossier Vol. 2

In Klaver’s Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula (2021), Dr. Watson became a vampire, while Dracula allied himself with Sherlock Holmes to combat Professor Moriarty. In this tepid sequel, Klaver tosses in elements from Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, and H.P. Lovecraft. The starting point is the ostensible return, in 1903, of Jack the Ripper and the arrival at Baker Street of a prospective client—none other than Dr. Henry Jekyll, who transforms before Holmes and Watson’s eyes into Edward Hyde. A witness identified Hyde as the Ripper at the scene of the latest atrocity, but Holmes believes his claims of innocence. Along with Dracula, the Baker Street duo investigate, finding evidence of lycanthropy and a threat to Earth from another dimension. Over-the-top situations, rather than any scares, dominate. Ponderous prose (“she’d been roughened and shopworn by sin and sorrow as to seem a slender candleflame of a woman very near to guttering out”) doesn’t help. Readers looking for a superior treatment of this crossover idea will be better served by Loren Estleman’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes. (Sept.)