Sherlock Holmes & Mr. Hyde by Christian Klaver is the second book in his Classified Dossier series. Having become convinced of the existence of potentially supernatural occurrences after their adventure with Dracula, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson are more open minded when they are confronted by the resurgence of the continually unsolved case of Jack the Ripper. Before they can be called upon by Scotland Yard though they have an unusual visitor, one Dr. Jekyll. Putting forth a rather unbelievable story he quite quickly locks himself into a set of chains and promptly changes into the rather formidable Mr. Hyde. Shocked by the occurrence they are inclined to believe there may be more going on when Mr. Hyde claims that despite the circumstantial evidence he is innocent of the Jack the Ripper murders. Something Mr. Holmes quickly agrees with after examining the new murder scene. However, that leaves them with a new and rather interesting puzzle and yet another rather unusual concept that shakes their worldview. Determined to still solve the murders though they team up with Mr. Hyde and later Ms. Winter and the Draculas, as they work on figuring out who actually is behind the murder and what was the importance of framing Mr. Hyde.
Now this book was a bit of a doozy but only because it was somewhat scattered, much like the first book was. The plot was coherent but it had half a dozen different tangents that were being explored and discussed at any given point in time and they weren’t always related to each other or to the case. By the end it ended up making sense but it didn’t always feel like that when you were smack in the middle of it. What was interesting was how it ties back into earlier stories and events in Holmes’ life so that it ends up creating this feeling of it really being a missing case that just slots right into the rest of his cases. At least this time it ended up only being one main case with numerous tangents instead of several different related cases. I did enjoy watching as Dr. Watson continually struggled with his own disbelief and Mr. Holmes struggled with his faith in his own abilities. Including those helped to make it feel more realistic as it showed how people really would struggle in this kind of situation. Holmes fears being able to continue working off of logic in a world where the unknown is known while Watson just fears what he thinks of certain natural laws about how the world works. It adds some interesting elements and an interesting dynamic to the story that is for sure. The blending of the two worlds, that of Holmes and that of Jekyll and Hyde, was actually really well done and it seems to have been well thought out. I am happy to give this book four out of five stars.
As you might have gathered this is probably considered a blend of detective fiction and fantasy or perhaps science fiction depending on how you view it. This would probably hold the most appeal to readers who are already fans of any of those genres but especially fans who enjoy Sherlock Holmes or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The book is aimed at adults and it does contain some dark and or gruesome elements so it would probably be inappropriate for younger readers. I would say no one younger than about fourteen should probably read this. It is the second book in the series but you can probably read it without having read the previous book and not have any major issues though you may be missing certain background knowledge if you do. Worth the read though and I hope you will consider trying it out. Remember to share your thoughts in the comments if you do.