Barefoot On Baker Street
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Barefoot on Baker Street is set in late Victorian London where a life of crime is the only way to escape poverty and servitude for one bright young workhouse orphan. The narrative follows Red on her incredible life-journey as it twists and turns through poverty, riches, infatuation, loss and love. A dramatic escape from the workhouse at thirteen propels Red into a world of slum housing, street gangs, prostitution and petty crime as the rapidly expanding city groans under the weight of the industrial revolution. A chance meeting with the mysterious and eccentric Sherlock Holmes prompts an infatuation which cuts through her street-wise bravado. Red's blossoming criminal career also brings her to the attention of Professor James Moriarty. An autistic savant riddled with obsessive compulsions, Moriarty is a dangerous criminal who draws Red into his life and onto a collision course with Holmes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The author's dedication to revising the personalities of every major character in the Sherlock Holmes Canon results in a muddle in this romantic Victorian crime thriller. Much of the book is told in the voice of Red, an orphan who fights back against the cruelty of her workhouse, ultimately killing one of her persecutors in self-defense. The narrative leaps forward in time, surprising the reader by now presenting the heroine as the wife and criminal partner of Professor James Moriarty, depicted as an obsessive savant. Red's path soon crosses that of Holmes and Watson, first as an apparent member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and then as the "real" criminal in Doyle's "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." Almost no character, be it Irregular leader Wiggins or the accused in the Blue Carbuncle, John Horner, escapes being portrayed in a harshly negative light, and the frenetic story line isn't helped by unconvincing romance scenes that read like fan fiction.
