MixedThe Chicago Review of Books... a strange mix of outlandish invention and high fidelity to the original tales ... Despite some interesting ideas and an original take on the Watson and Sherlock relationship, The Angel of the Crows ultimately suffers from a palpable tension between imitation and originality ... shines in its quieter, interpersonal moments ... Without breaking the quasi-historical setting, Addison does a lovely job using her Sherlock and Watson proxies to explore queer and trans identities in a world that mostly lacks the vocabulary to talk about them ... The individual cases themselves are entertaining, although readers familiar with the originals may find it a strange experience: it’s less a matter of spotting clever allusions than it is of waiting for anything notably different to happen, and most of the more intriguing and original departures—the Moriarty vampires, the glimpses of angelic politics—don’t lead very far ... there’s something unsettling about The Angel of the Crows’ generic status. At every point in the novel, it’s difficult to decide whether it’s pastiche, a highly original adaptation, or fanfic—meaning no disrespect to the latter, but a key element in fanfic is that it is essentially derivative...any deep re-imaginings or re-tellings are completely closed off by the depth of faithfulness to the original text ... In such a faithful adaptation at the plot level, the speculative elements are sometimes jarring ... a novel, full of angels, that makes no investigation of religion or theology; a version of the great consulting detective with supernatural senses and allies, who solves the same petty cases as his mortal inspiration. The entire premise is giving Sherlock wings—it’s a baffling decision to refuse to let him fly.
