A Curious Series of Events by Kevin James

A Curious Series of Events by Kevin James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is generally well written and I’m surprised there aren’t more reviews of it on here. I think the series and the fantastic cover art deserve more followers.
In this reimagining of the classic series set in modern day London, Holmes is a corporate lawyer, a fraud investigator. Not sure why that was changed. It makes the story feel like it’s about any two guys, not Holmes and Watson, as we’ve come to identify Holmes with detective work so much.
A note on the writing, I took a writing class and the author said to use the word said in fiction. He said people don’t read the word said, and it can be annoying if everyone is always “interjecting” or “admitting”. It cuts up the dialogue. Starting at 14%, we have, in order: nodded, suggested, agreed, agreed, interjected, enquired, commented, replied. Switch some to said. This being said, the book doesn’t have much dialogue.
The plot is generally good, I liked the two main characters. I felt the other characters all blended together. There were about 10 secondary males in the Holmes/Watson gay clique and I couldn’t keep up with who was who, who was doing who, and ultimately who murdered who.
The other thing I didn’t love was the characters had this modern urban gay life that doesn’t have a basis in any reality I know. They do designer drugs and fuck around and live for the scene. It seemed shallow and something I did in my late teens.
The author has a couple of these slams against gays in the book:
“I don’t know what sort of gay journalists you met in LA, but here they have to live for the highlife. After all, what contribution do the days make to society these days?” Julian laughed
“Everything in gay culture is focused around blatant pleasure or entertainment with no sustenance.”
And this book, for one, is something in gay culture not focused around blatant pleasure or entertainment with no sustenance. It’s sexy without being full of sex, it has a plot and interesting characters, just not ones that fit in with my exact lifestyle. I can see a lot of people liking this though.

View all my reviews