Down with Critics United!

They are the cancer to our society.

The root of heresy needs to be burnt to crisp

with over thousand innocent souls without remorse or guilt thereafter.

No sacrifice is too great and no treachery too small.

Remember, we all are walking under the immortal shadow of Him.

His light shines so brightly, it will guide us to our foreseen destiny that is in our grasp.

A great moment we all should not pass.

Praise Be The Emperor of Mankind!

If you are on the same page, cp this message.

And Bella119 is dumb.

Hybrid of Fate is nothing. She needs mental help.

cathrl, do u want to be my daddy? I won't promise to be a good girl :D

CrystalRei should quit.

Now onto the actual review:
"As you say, Watson. The good lady failed to provide me with the rather important information that would have better alerted me to the identity of the thief a great deal sooner. Thus avoiding …this." He gestured to the gash. "But in the end, I did recover the letter."

Life is, at best, a sea of problems. :-)

Down with Critics United!

They are the cancer to our society.

The root of heresy needs to be burnt to crisp

with over thousand innocent souls without remorse or guilt thereafter.

No sacrifice is too great and no treachery too small.

Remember, we all are walking under the immortal shadow of Him.

His light shines so brightly, it will guide us to our foreseen destiny that is in our grasp.

A great moment we all should not pass.

Praise Be The Emperor of Mankind!

If you are on the same page, cp this message.

And Bella119 is dumb.

Now onto the actual review:
I can remember the day on which this particular affair began quite clearly. I had been staying at Baker Street for the better part of a week while my wife was away on holiday visiting her sister in the country. Holmes had only been too glad to allow me access to my old room. Immediately after my arrival, he proceeded to regale me with his peculiar habits as though I had never left.

We're trying to teach Tom basic problem-solving skills. O.o

Took me a while, to find some time to read it. :-D

I liked the concept of a story, being a historian interested in history of everyday life, some of the plot elements( fifth cholera pandemic, views on insanity and psychiatric care) seem particularly interesting to me. I also liked the way you portrayed characters which are minor within Sherlock Holmes canon, like Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Hudson. There is a lot to be said about giving the “female voice” to the Holmes stories, not to mention multiple perspectives. Also, characters seem more emotional, and human and friendship of Holmes and Watson together with Watson’s marital life have attained new dimension through your writing.
There are also things I didn’t like- some of the dialogues seem outright clumsy, and some of the characters who are not given their POW are a bit flat. Also, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of famous Sherlock’s deductions- that may be intentional to give more realism to the character, but still I love them I their own silly- pulpish way-

I like your style of storytelling here, the accounts from different people. Again, it all feels so realistic to me. Like I said before, I'm a huge Jeremy Brett fan, so as I'm reading this I am seeing it play out in my mind with him as Holmes and all the rest of the characters/actors (Hardwicke as Watson since I preferred him to Burke).

I'm looking forward to reading more about these Bandits and what is really going on here!

My goodness! Why has it taken me so long to discover this?! Just in this one chapter I can feel the authenticity of this story, the delicate nature of which you spin your tale! As a fellow Sherlockian seeing this style of writing has be so giddy right now! I am loving it!

I looked briefly at your profile and I must say I was also happy to see your choice of Jeremy Brett as a profile pic! He is truly the best representative of the famous detective! (I just watched the Solitary Cyclist and the Norwood Builder last night!)

I am looking forward to reading the rest of this tale because I imagine it will be truly wonderful. I feel like I'm being sucked in the world of Holmes' London already! LOVE IT!

I see you've written a lot of other genres as well, to include my favorite, Jonny Quest. I look forward to reading this and some of your other works!

Short... and all the more powerful for that:-)

Melancholic chapter
Not knowing is the worst kind of waiting.
You utilise a description of the weather nicely to augment the emotions of Mrs Mary Watson.

Okay, now I definitely want to see something from the perspective of the footman. I am finding myself weirdly obsessed with him. With everyone in the manor, really. And what is going on in that house? I honestly have no idea which sibling is which now; I had originally believed that it was Lancelot who was married, though I’m not sure if that was something that I simply misread or if it was something that I made up. I had also thought that one of the daughters was married – though I don’t know if it was the murdered girl, or the one who is still alive – though, again, that could just as likely be something that I had managed to imagine while reading this.

I really like how you’re intertwining the two cases. At the moment, I find myself more interested in what Holmes and Watson are dealing with, but I imagine that the case back in London is probably about to get pretty interesting.

I really like the characterisation of the footman. He seems really interesting – and he’s seen so much of their family that he must be a veritable gold mine of information about them – and I really hope that we get to see more of him. I’d love to see something from his perspective. There must be a lot of insight that he could give.

I feel like Mary is maybe a little too familiar with Holmes – I get the feeling that she would be calling him Holmes or Mr. Holmes, due to the time this was set in, unless there is some familiarity that I don’t recall from the books, but I don’t think they really interacted all that much.

Things seem to be getting really interesting in the house now, from Watson’s discoveries, at least. I wonder what Holmes has been up to? I suspect we’ll find out soon.

This was another interesting chapter. I really want to know what Holmes has discovered – I imagine it would be quite a lot.

I didn’t notice any spelling or grammar mistakes, though there was one thing which I found a little odd, and could probably use some clarification. You write [she appeared to have inherited her complexion from her mother], but how could Watson know this? She was adopted, so he has no idea what her mother would have looked like. Unless you mean that she had a similar complexion to that of her adoptive mother, in which case I think you should clarify a little that it wasn’t actually inherited.

I’m also incredibly lost on all of their names – and I’m not entirely sure what you meant when you said [even the husband and wife did not show as much bitterness as the adopted children]. I’m starting to think I’ve maybe completely misunderstood the family dynamic here, or the husband and wife aren’t who I think they are.

This was pretty interesting, though, to be honest, I do prefer the chapters with more of Holmes’ input. I just love the way you write him. I liked the inclusion of the letter, and it raises some interesting questions, though Moriarty does come across as being a little out of character – he’s giving Moran a lot of chances, and I don’t recall him ever being quite so lenient. I don’t imagine he would even be telling him there was a plan if he didn’t know he was already on board.

The only correction I can suggest is that with the line [and the distance is great that] I feel that there should be a word after [great], just to clarify things a little – like [great enough] maybe, or [so great]. It just doesn’t feel quite finished.

I also don’t understand why the married daughter was still living with her mother – and presumably her husband, too – as she wouldn’t have been expected to work, and her husband should be capable of earning money. Surely that would be added incentive for both daughters to have got married and moved out, though I suppose this is relevant to the plot, so I’m willing to overlook that.

I really like the way you’ve written Watson’s narrative at the beginning – leaving in his original mistakes was a great touch, and I liked that Holmes was there to clarify things at both the beginning and end of this section with his notes.

The only mistake I noticed was that [I am nervous uneasy] just need the one description; I suppose it could have been an intentional mistake, but – judging from how Holmes said he would refrain from removing any mistakes from Watson’s account – I’ guessing that Holmes is editing these.

That was a really interesting way to end the chapter. I love the way this plot is moving forward. I think it’s all flowing really well, and I really like that some of the entries overlap so we can get a brief view of the same scene from another perspective. I’m really loving this story so far.

I know I’ve said it before, but you portray Holmes excellently; his voice really shines through in the chapter. I love all of the sections from his perspective; they’re very well written, and give so many hints for what is to come without actually telling us anything. Very enigmatic. I’m really interested to see what happens next and what direction you decide to take this in.

I loved the Inspector S. Hopkins section, and I really hope we get to see more of things. It was interesting to see things from the perspective of a character who’s maybe a little bit oblivious to what’s really happening – not to mention the fact that I can completely relate to that – and Holmes’ amendment or corrections at the end worked really well.

I loved the line [pelting him upside the face with a blotter]; I imagine Holmes incites this feeling in a lot of people, and I love the way you worded it.

Watson's personal diary entry, which opens this chapter, is subtly different than his reports from earlier in the story. The writing is much more subdued (or much less jaunty). It's obvious he's still not feeling well, and the fact that it comes through in the writing is marvelous. Although he mentions the weather again, it's less scene-scetting and more to point out that the weather is making him feel terrible. It sets a nice, unwelcoming atmosphere over everything he's saying. He even articulates it here: [However, I do feel a bit subdued about this case. There is a weariness that clouds my vision and my mind.] I confess I'm still worried about him.

[I am annoyed that he has done this. I have no interest in staying at this house, but I cann see that I don't have much choice in the matter.] I don't know why, but I find this a fascinating parallel between Lady Deramore and Mr. Holmes, and the Deramore children and Dr. Watson. Meaning, the lady keeps her children (and even their spouses) in her home because she won't release their inheritance to them. Holmes made arrangements for he and his partner to stay on the scene, so to speak, without asking Watson's agreement, and even went so far as to pack the doctor's bag for him. Whew! This should prove supremely interesting.

Professor Moriarty's letter is sufficiently suspicious. And kind of pompous, heh. This is probably my canon ignorance showing (whoops!), but I was surprised at his shoddy grammar. I had an expectation that someone like he would be painfully correct. Like here: [I shall tell you all in good time. / For now, it is important] - Why aren't these lines part of the same paragraph? It was really jarring to jump down them . . . And here: [Thanks to the memoires and writings of his companion Dr. John Watson.] Oooo, a fragment! lol. I dunno - is this just super nitpicky? It bothered me, anyway, so I thought I'd mention it.

~ Anne

I liked the touch of regular life included in Mrs. Hudson’s diary entry, though I’m a little uncertain why Holmes would feel the need to include it in his recounting of events, but I did like how you linked back to it at the end.

I really liked Holmes’ comments at the start of John’s diary entry; I think that this is a really interesting technique and it would be nice to see more of it. You could also use it to explain the inclusion of the tart section. I also think this could be a great technique if you wanted to show that diary entries are a flawed means of recounting events – like [It should be noted that Mrs. Hudson was not present for the majority of this event, and a large portion of this dairy excerpt is mere speculation on her part. I have still included it, however, as it provides another account which may help to clarify certain details for the reader. S.H.], for example.

In the section where Lestrade is standing on the street, I’m not entirely sure what’s happening. It’s only a very small paragraph, but I think you change the narrative style a couple times (going from first to third); it’s either that, or you have Watson noting in his diary something Holmes noticed, which doesn’t really make sense, so I’m inclined to believe it was an accident, especially after reading the next section.