Shadow Police
3 total works
The ghost of Sherlock Holmes is dead, but who will solve his murder?
The Great Detective's ghost has walked London's streets for an age, given shape by people's memories. Now someone's put a ceremonial dagger through his chest. But what's the motive? And who – or what – could kill a ghost?
When policing London's supernatural underworld, eliminating the impossible is not an option. DI James Quill and his detectives have learnt this the hard way. Gifted with the Sight, they'll pursue a criminal genius – who'll lure them into a Sherlockian maze of clues and evidence. The team also have their own demons to fight. They've been to Hell and back (literally) but now the unit is falling apart . . .
Paul Cornell's Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? is the third book in the urban gothic Shadow Police series.
Undercover cops Costain and Sefton have worked hard over the last year to ensure that crime boss Rob Toshack gets put away. When the final arrest is made - they figure they're work is done. But when the prisoner dies right in front of them they realise that there's far more to this case than meets the eye.
Costain and Sefton join a special task force to investigate with a hard-boiled DI James Quill as the lead and Lisa Ross working intelligence. They soon discover that Toshack's death is far from normal. And when each of them starts seeing apparitions and witnessing events that haven't occurred yet - they realise that they are dealing with a London gangland that that's more underworld - than criminal...
The dark is rising . . . Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete the drugs bust of his career. Then his prize suspect Rob Toshack is murdered in custody. Furious, Quill pursues the investigation, co-opting intelligence analyst Lisa Ross and undercover cops Costain and Sefton. But nothing about Toshack's murder is normal.
Toshack had struck a bargain with a vindictive entity, whose occult powers kept Toshack one step ahead of the law - until his luck ran out. Now, the team must find a 'suspect' who can bend space and time and alter memory itself. And they will kill again.
As the group starts to see London's sinister magic for themselves, they have two choices: panic or use their new abilities. Then they must hunt a terrifying supernatural force the only way they know how: using police methods, equipment and tactics. But they must all learn the rules of this new game - and quickly. More than their lives will depend on it.
`He's gone and written a novel too! I suspect it will be just as good as everything else he's written, and that's not fair at all' George R R Martin
Summer in London: a city in turmoil. The vicious murder of a well-known MP is like a match to tinder but Detective Inspector James Quill and his team know that it's not a run-of-the-mill homicide. Still coming to terms with their new-found second sight, they soon discover that what is invisible to others - the killer - is visible to them. Even if they have no idea who it is.
Then there are more deaths. The bodies of rich, white men are found in circumstances similar to those that set the streets of London awash with fear during the late 1800s: the Whitechapel murders. Even with their abilities to see the supernatural, accepting that Jack the Ripper is back from the dead is a tough ask for Quill's team. As they try to get to grips with their abilities and a case that's spiralling out of control, Quill realizes that they have to understand more about this shadowy London, a world of underground meetings, bizarre and fantastical auctions, and objects that are 'get out of hell free' cards. But the team's unlikely guide, a bestselling author, can't offer them much insight - and their other option, the Rat King, speaks only in riddles.
Relying on old-fashioned police work and improvising with their new skills only lands them in deeper water, and they soon realize that the investigation is going to hell - literally. And if they're not careful, they may be going with it . . .
The Severed Streets is the second urban fantasy by bestselling Doctor Who writer, Paul Cornell.