The Children of Sherlock Holmes [Paperback]

Ben F Eller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

This novel is a Sherlock Holmes mystery set against the backdrop of 1890's England . . . one of the most intriguing and contradictory eras in human history. Their nation's scholars produced literature, art and music to the wonderment of humankind as twenty thousand abandoned, homeless children roamed their nation's capitol. Ten thousand more toiled fourteen-hour days in wretched factories. Seven hundred of one thousand poor children died before the age of five. In such an unjust society Holmes confronts the exploitation, enslavement and murder of children in an underworld of perverse corruption that extends from unimaginable working conditions in factories to flesh merchants of the Middle East to the highets levels of English government. Holmes is driven to the edge of madness as he examines the desperate lives of factory children attempting to survive a web of corrupt politicans, factory owners and an indifferent society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: PENDIUM (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981688306
• ISBN-13: 978-0981688305
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,306,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Satanic Mills, June 4, 2008

By 

Gary Carden "Mason Jar" (Sylva, N. C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Children of Sherlock Holmes (Paperback)

Ben Eller's novel is a descent into the dark world of 19th century London when children were viewed as a commodity to be exploited. What William Blake referred to as "the satanic mills," were industries in which children were imprisoned passing their lives in conditions that became a nation's shame. Eller manages to blend fiction and fact by using Sherlock Holmes as a catalyst. Assisted by Watson, Holmes discovers and then reveals the plight of twenty thousand children. This masterful blending of Holmes' investigation with the grim and disturbing facts based on actual conditions in London's factories during the Victorian period is a tour de force.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Does this book really need Holmes?, February 1, 2009

By 

Darkendale "Raven" (VA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Children of Sherlock Holmes (Paperback)

This story gripped my attention from the first chapter. It accurately describes the sordid conditions of the poor and especially the children of late 1800's early 1900's London, through the eyes of three boys trapped in the "system". Two are brothers, sold by their parents to a butcher to "learn a trade", and the other their companion, also sold as cheap labor to the same man.

The boys rise above their squalid beginnings, partly due to good fortune, and partly due to their own intellect. But they rise to be the enslavers themselves, treating others as they were treated and worse, with one brother being the brains, the other a Doctor who helps supply children, and the third boy the brutal enforcer who keeps the slave labor working. They also supply girls for the "white slavery" trade.

This book would have been a great novel without Sherlock Holmes, whom we do not meet until chapter 19. Holmes matches wits with the older brother, the brains of the operation, who appears to have almost the mind that Holmes would have, checking him at every move, so that Holmes becomes directly responsible for a young girl's death, having forced the man's hand.

The rather dramatic climax more than makes up for a rather sappy "they lived happily ever after" ending.

I have only two dings for the author. 1: Why is it that when one writes a book on Holmes, credit is never given in the dedication to the one man without whom the book wouldn't have appeared, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And 2: Does this book really need Holmes to make it a great book, or is this a selling ploy, knowing that Holmes sells books?

Great novel and a good read otherwise.

Quoth the Raven...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time, piece of trash, January 13, 2010

By 

Lucy "lucy" (portland, or) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Children of Sherlock Holmes (Paperback)

In case you missed my other comment -- Here it is repeated.

This was one of the worst books I have EVER read. "Nevermore" is my advice to anyone thinking of reading it!

It is true: this book has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. It fails to follow the Canon (the truths Cannon Doyle used to create the characters in Holmes books) AT ALL!! It twists the Canon. It ignores the Canon. It spits on the Canon. His upsidedown, black from white, reverse treatment of every main character in the Conan Doyle books is simply ludicrous.

I love novels. I love a good read. This is neither. There are so many gratuitous sexual descriptions, it reads more like a smut novel. This book is so bad it makes romance novels look like literature. Soap Operas have more intelligent plots, climaxes and endings to their story lines. If the chacters were not bad enough, the plot development is obvious. The ending is worse than the simple, predictable and sappy one a fairy tale gives you. It is just plain bad.

If any part is "gripping," it is only because it claims to reflect an underbelly of a past world - any underbelly which remains as revolting as it ever was 200 and even 2000 years ago. After serving as a criminal prosecutor of physical abuse and sexual assault of children (including ritualistic and serial ones) and adult cases, I can tell you one thing that this book IS good at: outlining in inappropriate detail some of the methods and means to sexually and physically subjugating children and adults. Looking at any part of the underbelly is always gripping. That does not make it a "great novel."

This book is trash.