... supernatural Sherlock fanfiction (wingfic, to be precise)...the sooner you embrace this sincerely dorky premise, the sooner you can get to all the fun ... a Victorian mystery remix the likes of which I haven’t seen since steampunk’s heyday ... As someone that was ultimately disappointed in BBC’s Sherlock, it was a pleasure to read a kinder, more developed version of these characters that didn’t sacrifice the thrill of deduction and a protagonist much smarter than his readers ... Their treatment of Doyle’s identity as a surprise/reveal may turn some readers off—which, fair enough—but as a trans reader myself, I loved being fooled into misinterpreting Doyle’s transness as a wolf/hound transformation (trans guys are werewolves; don’t ask me to explain myself), and I loved that there was no real 'reason' for the reveal, it was for its own sake. It’s nice to have a story featuring a trans character that doesn’t focus on their transition or their pain ... All of that being said, there’s quite a lot in Angel of the Crows that exists for its own sake and that did ultimately leave me feeling less in love than I otherwise might have been. There are moments where the fourth wall is—maybe not broken, but certainly questioned—and where canonical material is referenced in a rather leading way, and I often felt as if these moments were going to build into some kind of meta-commentary or universe-bending reveal—something otherwise bigger than the mystery stories in-and-of themselves. But the novel just… never goes there. It is very much just itself. You get what you paid for ... And I like what I paid for. The novel is utterly bizarre, for one thing. The stories are amusing and thrilling, and they fully function as the pastiches of Victorian story-telling that they aspire to. The heroes are the best sort of charmingly-flawed outcasts, and I could go on for days about what a sweetheart this interpretation of Sherlock is. But—especially as a novel, not as a collection of disparate stories—there could have been more meat to it, more substance, more to say. Besides not doing anything to break the form, timeline, or narrative, there aren’t any real themes so much as motifs—various instances of the harm of gender roles and imperialism, but no throughline of commentary. It bothered me less in the heat of the reading process, and more in hindsight and in the final 20 pages or so, which was when I expected the motifs to be brought together somehow. The resolution of the Jack the Ripper case certainly didn’t prove enough of a unifier, however riveting its final scene may be.

A twisting, surprising Sherlock bend in a world of angels, hell-hounds, and other supernatural beings. Readers may know the names and the stories, but here is an original tale ... Addison enthralls readers with her character-driven action, intriguing expressions of identity and sexuality, and a world set in an alternate 1880s London that captures the imagination.

While very different in tone from her last work, Addison’s adept characterization and world building elevate The Angel of Crows above the run-of-the-mill Holmes pastiche. Highly recommended for fans of Kim Newman’s Anno-Dracula (1993) and Ian R. MacLeod’s The Light Ages (2003) or anyone looking to be immersed in a well-wrought alternate historical fantasy world.

... 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.

The angelic and monstrous elements are certainly the biggest and most obvious deviations, but what do they actually add or subtract? Not really that much, as it turns out. Crow is an angel, but he acts very much like his human original, sans the cocaine and fisticuffs. He’s also cheerfully oblivious rather than ill-tempered, and genuinely curious rather than an insufferable know-it-all. This is closer to the original Arthur Conan Doyle version and I don’t mind it, but it all adds up to a very nice varnish, attractive but only insofar as the original material below was already attractive ... The book is a bit stuck between the modern and the Victorian, which is an awkward place to be. It doesn’t feel quite like a real Victorian novel, and it lacks the glee of something like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which really leaned into both the supernatural and the absurd. By making angels and monsters ubiquitous, Addison robbed them of their ability to excite. They’re mundane facts of life, and we are asked to treat them as such ... Addison tended too far toward making everything very calm and normal...It’s doubly a shame because the supernatural elements are the best part ... Addison clearly has imagination by the bucketful. There are lots of moments of friction between what we think we know of Victorian England and the England on display...I love alternate Victorian settings, and this is quite a good one in its small details ... Yet again, Addison hamstrings herself with the setting: she wants to say things about colonialism, about feminism and morality, and about gender, but she’s also trying to cover the most famous Sherlock Holmes stories and maintain a Victorian setting, so everything gets a bit muddled. She can’t go deep on any one topic and so tries to do everything. It doesn’t quite work ... also missteps when it draws back from the detective work and mystery ... While enjoyable and well-written, it hews too closely to the original stories to feel truly fresh or original ... good for Holmes fans of any stripe or those looking for a diverting read, but it doesn’t entirely rise to the challenge of reworking Victorian and detective classics.

An alternate-world fantasy that adds a few welcome twists to the famous Holmes and Watson archetypes ... Readers don’t have to be mystery aficionados to guess what’s going on here, but this is no ordinary take on Sherlock Holmes ... Recognizable Arthur Conan Doyle mysteries and characters have new life in this sturdily built fantasy universe, making it fun to read even such familiar tales ... As Doyle and Crow explore London’s seedy occult underground, Addison doesn’t shy away from discussing the era’s racism. It would be a spoiler to be too specific, but what really makes this title stand out among a sea of Sherlock Holmes stories is its straightforward criticism of gender roles and the gender binary itself ... A Sherlock Holmes–esque novel that truly breaks the mold.