Eye Of The Crow

As a long-time fan of the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes, I thoroughly enjoyed Eye of the Crow, by Shane Peacock, a book written for young readers.

The author, Shane Peacock, creates a delightful and easily plausible backstory for the original, adult Holmes, describing his "first case" as an awkward young boy of thirteen years. Much of the book focuses on how, as a poor half-Jew in Victorian London, he lives the life of a child outcast. More than a compelling coming-of-age story, Eye of the Crow is a thrilling murder mystery that the young Holmes must solve before he himself becomes one of the accused --- or a victim. In some ways, this is an even better story than most of the original Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Sir show more Arthur Conan Doyle. The plot is much less obvious, and the tension is more skillfully wrought. Moreover, the author paints an absolutely vivid description of 19th century London.

Much of the fun reading this book was, for me, seeing the seeds of Sherlock Holmes the man being planted in Sherlock Holmes the boy. We see, especially, how his parents had a profound influence on the development of the mature character. Because the book is written for young readers, and because many young readers would not, I suspect, be very familiar with the adult Holmes, these jewels may be lost on the target audience. Nevertheless, even readers lacking comprehension of this foreshadowing will enjoy this great mystery and period novel. show less

3.5 stars

13-year old Sherlock Holmes is bullied at school and mostly skips it, anyway. When a woman is murdered and a boy arrested, Holmes is convinced the boy is innocent and goes out to find the real killer.

Well, I enjoyed this! I liked the extra background information on Sherlock Holmes – his family and his life beyond Watson and solving crimes. And it was fun getting to know some of the other characters – Holmes new friend, Irene, and the young local crime boss in the area, Malefactor. The mystery itself started off slow for me, but picked up in the second half. I enjoyed this and will read the next in the series.

Eye of the Crow tells the story of Sherlock Holmes’s first case at the age of 13. It was an odd choice for me since, believe it or not, I have never read a book about Sherlock Holmes nor seen a movie about him! But I read a rousing endoresment of it on another blog, and also I liked the premise.

The story is set in London in 1867. Sherlock is from a poor family, his mother having been disinherited after marrying a Jewish man, and his father unable to get a decent job because of his religion. Sherlock is called Judas his schoolmates, who bully him unrelentingly. [Actually if Sherlock’s tormentors had a more sophisticated education, they might have called him Shylock.] In any event, the streets London are much more exciting to show more Sherlock, and he begins to skip school regularly.

Sherlock loves to practice his skills at observing people as he walks the crowded streets of London, and he loves to follow the tabloids. A story about the murder of a young woman intrigues him, and he goes to the courthouse to see the arrival of the accused, a young Arab boy not yet nineteen. As the Arab boy is brought to the jail, something about Sherlock’s sympathetic eye catches his own, and he says to Sherlock, “I didn’t do it!” From thence onward, Sherlock is determined to find the real killer and get the Arab boy released. After all, he knows how easily prejudice can taint the facts and lead to injustice. Moreover, he himself comes under suspicion because of the communication from the accused specifically directed to Sherlock.

In the course of young Sherlock’s investigations he meets a number of people who will become important to him later on in life. Fans of Sherlock Holmes will recognize the references to characters who become familiar to readers of the adult series. We even get to know his parents a bit, both of whom help Sherlock solve the murder. But those who lack familiarity will not feel lost. The book is sufficient unto itself, and we also get to see how the young, then inexperienced boy learns how to solve a mysterious crime.

Evaluation: This book has won quite a few awards for Young Adult fiction. I found it entertaining, although I imagine it would be much more rewarding for followers of the (adult) Sherlock Holmes series. Oddly, the supporting cast seemed better drawn than the main protagonist; I loved Sherlock’s parents, his nemesis/doppelganger The Malefactor, and his intrepid friend Irene much more than Sherlock himself.

Note Bene: All of the Sherlock Holmes stories but one are out of copyright and in the public domain. This means you can read them for free on the Internet. A good source to access these stories is The Sherlockian.Net Portal . You can also read the first chapter of Eye of the Crow for free, here. show less

Eye of the Crow tells the story of the 13-year-old Sherlock Holmes's first case and shows how his origins lead to his developing into Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character. Fans of the original Sherlock Holmes will likely not be disappointed. Peacock does an excellent job of developing an interesting plot, forming a faithful characterization of the young Sherlock Holmes, and recreating the atmosphere of 19th century London.

Those who are not already familiar with the Sherlock Holmes character will probably enjoy this introduction to the detective as well. My daughter read this book as part of the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading program, which selects outstanding Canadian books as finalists for its yearly awards program. show more Even though it did not win in the end, Eye of the Crow was enthusiastically received by my daughter and her classmates. However, she did find several of the scenes quite frightening, so I would recommend the book for ages 11 and up. show less

This is the first in a series about a 13-year-old Sherlock Holmes. It's a good detective story where you basically start with no clues and little by little the pieces start to fall together. This one is a loose take on the Jack the Ripper crimes in Whitechapel in the late 1800s. We get a vague sense of life in the underbelly as he cohorts with street urchins and travels around to the less desirable areas of London, but I didn't get a sense of the Sherlock he would become in the Doyle books. From a teen perspective I would give it 4 stars.

I won the third book in this series through ER here on LT, and so I thought I'd start at the beginning of the series. This is the first of Peacock's four books (so far) and it is awesome. With some hesitation, I'd picked up the Young Bond series and ended up loving it, so I was excited about the prospects of this book. And it was pretty excellent. I can't wait to read the next book in the series. I like it when authors take on our old heroes, or whatever, and write about them as teens. We're lucky to be reading in a time where YA novels (though many consider this book J, I disagree) are so amazingly well written.

Pastiche work on teenage Sherlock Holmes. Plot is intriguing and setup evocative of turn of the century. It had a tinge... Just a tinge of supernatural.

***Have never seen a crow after the sundown. That aspect in this book looked a little unrealistic. *