Thomas, Will: The Black Hand

Touchstone © 2008, 289 pages

The Black Hand is the fifth in Will Thomas's series of Barker & Llewelyn novels, Victorian-era mysteries with more than a passing resemblance to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. Cyrus Barker is the Sherlock figure, an enigmatic character with extraordinary training in, for example, numerous self defense techniques. Barker has his own band of "Irregulars" available to help him on cases, a network of acquaintances and allies across London, some of them less than savory types. Thomas Llewelyn is the Watson to Barker's Holmes, the character in whose voice the story is recounted. Llewelyn is twenty-something, a widower and one-time classical scholar who also served time for theft prior to his employment with Barker. He is being trained as Barker's assistant. In this outing, for example, he is sent to a Sicilian mafioso to learn how to defend himself with a dagger.

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