Book Title: Eye of the Crow
Author: Shane Peacock
Publisher: Tundra Books www.tundrabooks.com
Released: 2007
Pages: 250
ISBN: 978-0-88776-850-7
$24.99 CAN / $19.95 US 

Reviewed by: Breanne Cursley (Calgary Correspondent - Canada)

4 ½ Stars 

Gripping, ingenious, and spellbindingly clever, Eye of the Crow is a steal of a read.  A novel like no other, this is a story of the boy Sherlock Holmes - and a rather unique tale.

The story follows the mystery of a brutal murder in the depths of London in 1867.  A woman is the victim; her name and identity unknown.  Young Sherlock Holmes reads of the crime in the newspaper, and is immediately intrigued.  He wastes no time in making himself involved, and soon his once-innocent curiosity delves him deeper and deeper in the case until he himself becomes a suspect.  Time is running short and Sherlock must solve the mystery before it is too late for him, and the other accused murderer - but will he be too late?

At first I found Eye of the Crow a bit slow, and I could hardly get into it.  It wasn't that the story was boring, because it certainly wasn't at all; it just had a distinctively slow pace about it.  But I kept reading, and as I did I found that I became more and more interested, and by the end of the novel I was completely hooked. 

Would I read the rest more of this series? Of course, because I would love to see what else Shane Peacock has to come up with in the world of Sherlock Holmes.  I would certainly recommend it, even for those who, like me, have had hardly any knowledge or previous interest in Arthur Conan Doyle's works - because I have discovered, through reading this novel, that Sherlock is much more than just a sleuth with a deerstalker hat and a magnifying glass.