Mycroft Holmes - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Anna Waterhouse
Titan Books
336 Pages
People of my generation know Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a basketball great for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. Some people just a little older than me might remember him as Lew Alcindor. A whole new generation may know Abdul-Jabbar as an author. With Anna Waterhouse, he has put together the first book in a series featuring Sherlock Holmes’ brother, Mycroft.
Mycroft Holmes introduces a series based upon Sherlock’s older brother. Fresh from Cambridge and working for the Secretary of State for War, Holmes is prepared for a comfortable existence working for the government with his best friend, and his fiance. However, when his friend, Cyrus, receives news from Trinidad about missing children, Holmes’ fiance, Georgiana disappears to the small, Caribbean island. Ever inquisitive, Holmes must discover the reasons behind the missing islanders and the missing Georgiana.
With Cyrus, Holmes sets off for the warmer climate of Trinidad. Along the way, the shadows of secrecy get deeper and deeper. Holmes uses his family’s gift of intuition to discover the reasons behind the mysteries in paradise. In the end, of course, Mycroft Holmes gets to the bottom of it all with his trusty friend, Cyrus Douglas.
Mycroft Holmes serves as a mentor for his younger brother, Sherlock. Although 130 years separates the beginning of the Sherlock Holmes saga by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the beginning of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Mycroft Holmes series, it fits neatly into the fictional world of both Holmes brothers.
This steady-paced mystery is fun to read. We meet both Mycroft and Sherlock when they are still very young men. It sets Mycroft forth upon a path that he was not aware of when he first graduated from university. Instead of a simple governmental worker, this will begin the path that ultimately, according to Doyle, turns Mycroft into the man in the shadows who is controlling much of the British government.
If you like the Sherlock Holmes stories, then Mycroft Holmes by Kareen Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse will pique your interest. This book (and the others to follow) only add to the mystique that is Sherlock Holmes. We see him much younger than we ever saw him in Doyle’s stories before he became the famed Sherlock. Also, we see much more of Mycroft that Doyle ever shared with his readers. With only four stories involving the elder brother and a rich universe in which he was placed, the stories of Mycroft Holmes were just begging to be written.
I cannot wait to read the further adventures of Mycroft Holmes and Cyrus Douglas. I have already checked out the next book in the series from my local library in anticipation of being just as entertained as I was while reading this book. In the meantime, you can grab Mycroft Holmes to see if you like it as much as I did.
Craig Bacon once ran a pre-teen dectective agency with a friend and a cousin. We solved nothing.