“During the year or so while this particular book was occupying my headspace, I went through several life-altering experiences. A close relative died of cancer. A good friend died of cancer. I myself nearly died of cancer….

Those omens suggest that it’s time to step away from the Cthulhu Casebooks and more broadly from Sherlock Holmes. It’s time to look elsewhere, try new things, seek new challenges…” (p. 508)

I’ve read and enjoyed James Lovegrove’s Cthulhu Casebooks (you can read my reviews here and here and here) but from Lovegrove’s Afterward above, Sherlock Holmes and the Highgate Horrors (2023) looks like the end of the series. And, although Lovegrove has written over a dozen other, more conventional, Sherlock Holmes pastiches, it looks like the end of that series, too.

It’s a pity that Lovegrove is leaving Sherlock Holmes and Watson to other writers. Sherlock Holmes and the Highgate Horrors presents a series of fascinating, interconnected stories where the aliens of Yuggoth (aka, Pluto) begin their insidious infiltration of Earth. Lovegrove brings Irene Adler into these adventure stories where she plays key roles in the action.

A crashed alien space ship, mysterious fungi, visits to Yuggoth, bizarre occurrences (including the Walking Dead), the Necronomicon, and the threat of alien invasion pervade the stories in Sherlock Holmes and the Highgate Horrors. If James Lovegrove is truly stepping away from the Cthulhu Casebooks, these are fine tales to wrap up the series. GRADE: B+