There is only one reason that this book has been on my currently-reading pile for so long looked at me reproachfully from there: it was a present from a good friend. I always feel really bad about DNF-ing books that were presents (especially because that was actually a book from my wishlist...I put in on there long before I learned of the gloriousness that are the kindle-samples on amazon)...but this book and I will never get along for so many reasons...
- It's the second book in this series and so it starts...with a detailed summary of the first book. Yes everything including the who did it and why...thank you author...even if I had enjoyed your book and wanted to check out your other works you just spoiled one completely
- The footnotes...the amount is actually stll bearable (unlike in The Whitechapel Horrors) but the notes aren't at the bottom of the page or all collected at the end of the book, no they're at the end of each chapter which is rather impractical in a paperback because you have to search for them again everytime you have a new one (I am aware that this is probably not the fault of the author but the publisher's...still: WHY?)
- The language...it's so stilted. (I read a dialogue-sample to my mother and she said 'But aren't Holmes and Watson supposed to sound a bit like this' - 'Yeah but this isn't Holmes and Watson this is a working class couple from Berlin'...and she fell down laughing and almost hyperventilated)
- Added to all that a general feeling of 'it just didn't click for me'...I can be somewhat picky with my Holmes-pastiches and want them to 'feel' like Doyle's Holmes and the author didn't really manage that either.