A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters, #12)

by Mercedes Lackey

The twelfth novel in Mercedes Lackey's magical Elemental Masters series reimagines Sherlock Holmes in a richly-detailed alternate 20th-century England

Christmas is a very special time of year.  It is special for Psychic Nan Killian and Medium Sarah Lyon-White and their ward Suki, who are determined to celebrate it properly.  It is special for their friends, Doctor John Watson, and his wife Mary, both Elemental Masters, who have found great delight in the season seeing it through young Suki’s eyes. 
 
It is also special to others...for very different reasons.
 
For Christmas Eve is also hallowed to dark forces, powers older than mankind, powers that come awake on this long, cold night.  Powers best left alone.  Powers that could shake the foundations of London and beyond.
 
It begins slowly.  Women disappearing in the dark of night, women only missed by those of their own kind.  The whispers only begin when they start to reappear—because when they do, they are no longer sane.  And when Nan and Sarah and the Watsons are called on to examine these victims, they discover that it was no ordinary horror of the streets that drove them mad.
 
But then, the shadows reach for other victims—girls of good, even exalted families, who vanish from concerts, lectures, and evening balls.  And it will take the combined forces of Magic, Psychic Powers, and the world's greatest detective to stop the darkness before it can conquer all.

• ISBN10: 0756408733
• ISBN13: 9780756408732
• Publish Date: 17 October 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: DAW Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780756408732

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

This is the 12th book in the Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey from Berkley Publishing.

An ensemble cast including Nan and Sarah, their birds, assorted elementals, Sherlock Holmes, John and Mary Watson plus others from earlier books in the series do battle with, well, 'Cthulu lite' in an alternate-earth in Victorian London.

There are few iconic fictional characters with a more passionate following than Sherlock Holmes. There are numerous serious groups who study the Holmes canon and meet to have dinner and debate the finer points of Conan Doyle's extant oeuvre. For those folks, this book and the one previous (A Study in Sable, #11), would certainly bring on apoplexy.

While I love traditional Holmes and have read them many many times, that hasn't stopped me from enjoying the rich abundance of Holmes pastiches and modern narratives. For those people who are a little stricter in their acceptance of ersatz Holmes, it can be said in defense of this installment that Holmes himself isn't really a central character, more of recurring cameo. I didn't find his presence distracting at all. I don't know that I would have rated him a cover appearance (though the cover art is beautiful), he doesn't appear all that much in the book.

My main problem with the book was that I found myself repeatedly jerked out of the story by the really over the top 'dialect' dialogue. Much of the time I found myself almost having to translate phonetically to see what they were trying to say. That was my biggest grumble with the book and it certainly wasn't insurmountable, just annoying.

This is a Mercedes Lackey book, the good characters are good, the villains are villainous and there isn't much any blending.

I found it comfortably readable, entertaining and distracting. I loved the scene with the panto, and I love little Suki.

Four stars, it was exactly as expected, thank goodness.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.