Alexis Hall has created a delightfully quirky sci-fi/fantasy, gender-swapped, bisexual version of the beloved Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. In this novel, infamous sorceress Scheherazade Haas solves mysteries and gets into exciting adventures with her ex-space army captain, John Wyndham. Both characters are true to the original, yet unique enough to seem like an entirely new duo set amid a space-faring cosmos. A lovely addition to any scifi or queer bookshelf!

Absolutely delightful (and often laugh-out-loud funny) adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes series. Highly LGBTQ friendly and delightfully Lovecraftian, this novel explores the first case of Captain John Wyndham (Watson) and the consulting sorceress Ms. Shaharazad Haas (Holmes). I dearly hope this book is the start of the series!

I enjoyed "The Affair of the Mysterious Letter" for a lot of reasons, the main one being it was just fun. Told through the recollections of Dr. John Wyndham, this Sherlockian novel follows the exploits of Shaharazad Haas, sorceress supreme, as she and her co-tenant Wyndham search for the blackmailer of Eirene Viola, a former partner/lover in crime of Haas. Alexis Hall does a splendid job of capturing the verbose style of Dr. John Watson in Doyle's stories, though I recommend having a thesaurus handy while reading as there are quite a few words used that are uncommon outside of standardized tests (which is still in keeping with Doyle's original style).

In addition to capturing the style of Doyle, Hall brings their own ideas and mythologies to the classic duo, including Cthulu-esque monsters, Dungeons and Dragons (shout out to Strahd), and a slew of other references and characters that nevertheless feel quite in keeping with the story Hall tells.

Finally, I fully appreciated the representation in this novel. Hall has written other queer fiction, but while there are queer characters (including trans, pan, and bi) their sexuality simply is, rather than being a contentious part of the story, and for that especially I enjoyed this book.

Possible spoiler below:

My only complaint is that you never find out who the husband is. I have theories, but they are never confirmed. I hope that Hall writes more adventures of Haas and Wyndham because I really want to know!

Imaginative take on a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Made me want to hear more from this weird world...

When I read the blurb of the book, I thought this was a great melding of mystery and fantasy genres. The descriptions and some of the word choice was distracting and made it difficult to get into story.

Holmes and Watson, but where Sherlock is the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. The book is (of course) narrated by Ms. Haas’s housemate, the fumbling Captain John Wyndham, whose gentle sensibilities frequently require him to to censor his account. This is a queer fantasy world, with sky-pirates, vampires, underwater cities, necromancers, fishmongers, and luxury express trains. It is weird and ridiculous and I loved it.