March 21 - "A Study in Emerald"

“A Study in Emerald”
by Neil Gaiman
Fragile Things (2006)

* * * * (Great) Fantasy

In an alternate version of Victorian England, two men search for a killer. Using new, but effective manners of deduction, the men follow the killers's trail to an unexpected revelation.

The power of this story is its ability to take your expectations and twist them just so, each turn dropping you deeper into a world you thought you knew. The story is an excellent example of a mystery in which all the clues are explained, conclusions justified by the evidence collected. Having never read a story starring Sherlock Holmes, I can only imagine – and probably rightly so – that the format here follows that of Doyle’s rather closely. [Some research on Wiki suggests Gaiman wrote Emerald as a mashup of Holmes's first adventure, A Study in Scarlett, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos – which is all beyond my reading.] One of the other powers of fiction is a story’s ability to spark a desire to follow the tale to its obvious influences. I am more intrigued by the worlds of Holmes and Cthulhu than I ever had been.