Sherlock’s been framed, the nobility sucks, and also the nobility sucks. Moriarty and crew mostly sit out the first half of their book, then come in for the second part when this series once more revels in its excesses.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good chunk of this book and the first part is great fun. With Sherlock framed for murder, he’s on the case and up against an incredibly petulant Gregson. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a mystery where our detective humiliates the police; it’s practically tradition.
There’s an especially good vein being mined here where Moriarty is using Sherlock to his own ends and expects him to solve the case. That’s a clever way to hold on to the canon while also making the series lead sharper than his inspiration.
Moriarty remains very much a background figure for this part, but the book keeps him lingering in the background as the mastermind, as it should be. They also mess around with the idea of the Holmes stories being written by Watson and having him invent the traditional hat and pipe accoutrement to gussy up the coarser version of the character we get here (whose accent does not translate all that well).
Then the next story arc begins and I once more roll my eyes at the ridiculous nature of the vile appetites of the nobility in this story. There’s nothing this book apparently won’t hit for shock value, so hold tight for eye gouging, tendon severing, and, yes, even worse.
It’s all a little much and while we haven’t seen the end of the arc, I don’t think, it’s a bit of a letdown to have such a famous Holmes story used as inspiration for such a try-hard bit of schlock. The reasoning behind this doesn’t make any sense in context - it’s hard to envision a version of this where it would actually be sporting to do what the nobles do, so why it interests them at all I cannot fathom.
I will say that Moran is turning into a real stalwart and I like his position in the gang and the way he knows quite a bit, even for being largely there as muscle. When he gets a somewhat cool line, I loved the way they bagged on him during the gag manga.
An okay volume. I like this series more than I love it. I get why it wants to hammer home how much the nobility deserve comeuppance, but there’s villainy and there’s outright depravity and this series isn’t good about easing off the latter when trying to illustrate the former.