karmakit's review
3.0
I’m struggling with giving this three or four stars.....I really enjoyed listening to this book. The flow was wonderful as well as the ode to the original Holmes stories. The bit of science was enjoyable woven with the detective mystery and supernatural elements.
ferns_citruscorner_8's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
4.0
A good second book. Not entirely the Sherlock Holmes and John Watson I picture, but it’s fine. There’s a shit ton of racist name calling and whatnot, so please take care before reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Racism
iam_griff's review
4.0
Mixing Cthulhu with Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, who could ask for more? This is the second volume in the trilogy of the Cthulhu Casebook & I enjoyed it again immensely.
mike_brough's review
3.0
Not as good as the first volume but still enjoyable hokum. The middle, journal, section was well done.
foxon's review
2.0
This just made me uncomfortable. Not for its gore or murder, that is very par for the course for books of this genre, but for how callously James Lovegrove treats topics he clearly knows are sensitive. Main characters engage in on page racism and enslavement with hardly a thought much less a second one in order to analyze their own behavior. It's like he tried to show how 'Of the time' these characters are, but what he fails to write the MC's in any way except for the heroes of the story. So tonally the reader is given to think that these are the 'good guys' even though their actions show us they are absolutely not. And that's all before we get to the massive flash back that takes up 1/4 of the book and deals with real life racism that was going on in America at the time. By the time that sequence was finished I didn't even care about what the ending was going to be.
godlizza's review
4.0
A strong sequel, though not quite as fun as the first book. This book, I will say, really amped up the horror, especially in the latter half of the book. Everything to do with weirdo brain experiments truly captured the 'wrongness' of human experimentation and messing with nature. Good mad scientist shit right there. The ending was also a bit of a mind fuck I didn't see coming. Excited to read the third book and see how the series wraps up :)
thebeardedpoet's review
3.0
I may have enjoyed this more if I had put more space between it and the first one in the series. However, in any event, I did not enjoy it as much as the first, and I think I have some reasonable reasons why. There is a journal of a different author (not Watson) embedded within the middle of the Sherlock and Watson tale. So the Sherlock storyline serves as bookends. In the previous Cthulhu casebook, the Holmes story was more interwoven into the Lovecraft materials. Reading the journal narrative of mad experiments (mind transfer) and an ill-conceived journey down the Miskatonic River was not easy to endure. When the story circles back to Holmes and Watson, the wrap up is too fast paced and ultimately unsatisfying. I still might try the third book in the series, but I will not be in the hurry to do so.
bambiann's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
ruiponce's review
adventurous
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Incredibly well-written, dry British sense of humor
jonmhansen's review
4.0
"It was early one morning in the spring of 1895, and Sherlock Holmes and I were, as usual, running for our lives."