Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case

Read it now, because next year you will probably see in on Broadway. In the dead of night, under the dense fog of London, a terrible crime has been occurred. A beautiful woman is stabbed and left to die in a pool of blood. No one has witnessed the crime, or have they? Meanwhile, in a dreary London flat, a brilliant, bitter and decidedly odd teenager named Sherlock Holmes dreams of a better life. His mother, a highborn lady, has been cast out of her family because she married a Jew, his bright university trained father, who is unable to attain his true potential because of anti-Semitism in the London of 1867. The father toils at a low-paying job, while his mother tutors voice in the homes of the wealthy. Young Holmes, as he visits the murder scene and speculates on the clustering of crows above it, becomes a suspect. Danger runs high and interest piques page by page until the mystery is finally solved. This is a page-turner par-excellence. Shane Peacock has created a boy who bears all the seeds of the future adult Homes. His clever characterization of the boy Holmes, hints at the great detective Holmes will become. As for Jewish interest -it is there in the discrimination issues, and (pardon me) in the depiction of Jewish seichel. Ages 10-14. Reviewed by Marcia Posner

Sherlock's childhood is revealed as not quite Canonical, but interesting all the same. A preview of Holmes the "Sword Of Justice" is seen as young Sherlock scampers around London in an effort to save an innocent man. Lestrade is too old and Holmes too emotional for Watson's rendering of the adventures years later, but the story is fun and goes well with a cup of tea.

Young adults who relish detective stories will find much to like in EYE OF THE CROW, set in 1867 London and telling of a woman's murder and the son of a Jewish intellectual, Sherlock Holmes, who dreams of a better life to rise him above impoverishment. His investigation of the murder brings him into social and cultural conflict in this 'boy Sherlock Holmes' story.