Can an author who made his name writing intelligent, near-future sci-fi for adults write a novel that will appeal to children?

If the author is Ian McDonald, and the book is Planesrunner – the first in McDonald’s Everness series – the answer is a resounding yes.

Basically, McDonald has taken all the things that kids love – pirates, airships, science-magic, football, Christmas – and turned them into a novel. Planesrunner is relentlessly enjoyable from beginning to end, certainly the most fun of all McDonald’s books.

14 year-old Everett Singh is a genius. He can think in more than your bog-standard three dimensions, and his spatial awareness makes him a killer goalie at school. None of makes much difference, however, when his father is very professionally snatched off the street in front of him.

Read the rest of the review on CultureNorthernIreland.

With Royal Street, the first in The Sentinels of New Orleans series and available from April 2012, debut author Suzanne Johnson joins their ranks. A magical murder-mystery set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Royal Street catapults its reluctant heroine on a desperate romp through a clever, well-constructed world populated by a cast of quirky, sometimes wicked, characters.

Drusilla Jaco, DJ to most, is an ambitious young Green Congress Wizard, sick of being stuck with the magical grunt-work of pixie retrieval and sniffing out bad guys. Maybe her potions and rites aren’t as immediately potent as the physical magic of her Red Congress Wizard mentor, Gerald St. Simon, but it gets the job done. Surely she can be trusted with more than batting her eyelashes at Jean Lafitte, the famous and undead pirate.

The one thing DJ never expected, was that in the drowned wake of Hurricane Katrina she’d be responsible for the devastated, supernaturally infested city of New Orleans. St. Simon is missing, gone without a magical or mystical trace, the with the Veil in storm-tatters the preternatural creatures of Beyond – the vampires, gods and historical undead – are slipping into the city and Lafitte is back – again – and holding a grudge.

With the aggravating, and mostly unwanted, help of Enforcer Alexander Warrin and his troubled, scarred cousin Jake, DJ must put New Orleans back together. And whether the Elders like it or not, she is going to find the wizard who raised her like a daughter when her own family didn’t want her.

To be honest, the fact that Royal Street is set in post-Katrina NOLA gave me pause. So many people lost their lives, their homes and livelihoods that using it as a backdrop sits uncomfortably. Yet, obviously, eliding NOLA entirely from the canon on modern literature – since it would be worse, surely, to write about the city without acknowledging Katrina – isn’t the answer.

Speaking as a non-native of the area, I think Royal City handles it respectfully and with creative integrity. Katrina and its after-effects are an integral part of the novel. The basic plot could have survived with a modicum of tweaking, but the atmosphere of the book is essential to the structure of the novel. The early pages, pre-Katrina, where an oblivious Gerry and DJ chat light-heartedly about the hurricane stir up a sickly tension as the reader waits for the other shoe to drop. By the time DJ’s experience catches up with the readers knowledge, that tension carries over to the unfolding plot. Her bone-deep distress at the state of the city she loves is also affecting, and mirrors her eroding confidence she will find the mentor who is the reason she loves the city.

(And, as it turns out, Johnson is a New Orleans native. Her affection for the city is palpable. So if anyone has the right to write about it…)

Earnest, sometimes nervy DJ is a complex character, with enough potential to carry the next two books in the series. She works hard and ass-kicking doesn’t come naturally to her, but she can make a hand of it when she has time to prepare. DJ is an ant not a grasshopper, she has natural talent but she also works hard at being good at what she does. There is a endearing down-to-earth quality about her, considering she is tosses not-quite fatal spells at undead pirates. It grounds the book, anchoring it in the fictional reality of DJ’s experience. After all, people rarely go through their day to day life thinking, ‘This is amazing!’

I do like DJ, and the rest of the cast, but it is the world that steals the show in Royal Street. Johnson has conjured up an engrossing, thought-provoking world with enough unique elements to incite theories (essential to build a fan-base). From the colour-coded Congresses of the wizards to the shadow New Orleans of the restless, historical undead – a dangerous reflection of the New Orelans on legend – it is sketched with light, evocative strokes that make you want to know more. There is obviously more to learn, there are races – vampires, weres, fae and elves – that we have seen nothing of so far. Wizards seem to dominate this side of Beyond, but it is obvious that isn’t just because of might. Perhaps they are just the ones with the most co-operative society? Or is it the fact that, unlike the rest, they don’t seem native to the Beyond?

Perhaps the next book in the series will give some of those answers?

Hopefully we will be seeing Jean Lafitte again too. DJ has two perfectly good suitors already, barring between-book misfortunes, but Lafitte has all the charm of a not-too bad guy.

Luckily you won’t have to wait too long to find out any questions raised in Royal Street. River Road is scheduled for fall 2012. There are also a number for free stories to read on Johnson’s blog (In what I think is chronological order): Pirate’s Alley, Intervention and Chenoire.

I think this is going to be a series with legs. It is fun, the world is complex but not confusing and Johnson has a fun, versatile writing style.

For more information on the Incarnate Theater Treasure Hunt, check out Jodi’s post.

Amy Ryan is a Senior Art Director for HarperCollins Children’s Books. Joel Tippie, Art Supervisor, designed the jacket and interior for Incarnate.

Are there any specific design guidelines to YA covers? If so, what are they. If not, what makes a good cover?

A: There aren’t specific guidelines to follow, which is what is so great about designing for teens! But, we do look closely at trends for book covers and genres. We nail down early on what genre the book is and where it will be shelved in the bookstores so that we can come up with a compelling and competitive cover.

We tend to explore both iconic and figurative imagery in the very beginning stages and then from there, editorial and sales really helps us hone in on the essence of the book and what imagery and concept work the best for it. As for what makes a good cover, we go for eye catching typography and striking images. We want our covers to stand apart from the masses and really catch a teen, parent, or child’s eye.

Beautiful as the cover is, and intrinsically tied to the book, did you have any other concepts?

A: In some of our original concepts, Joel worked up some comps that utilized the butterfly motif in a more iconic way without the girl. We loved the idea of showing a group of things with one standing out in a unique way. One of Joel’s early comps had a bunch of fluttering butterflies, all in the same color on a flat background color, with just one butterfly in shades that stood out from the others.

He also worked up a comp with a close up of a butterfly with beautiful, luminous wings and then behind it a slew of smaller butterflies all in shades of blacks and blues in the distance (see embedded picture for one example of an early comp made from free stock photography). Again, it showed with color and scale a unique butterfly midst a group of all others that look the same.

One last version, aside from an early comp of the concept that ended up being ‘the one’ for the cover, was to get a figure in the mix, but with just a graceful hand on the cover, gently releasing a butterfly into the air. In the end, everyone agreed that Joel’s comp with the beautiful butterfly mask over the girl’s face was something fresh and unique.

We were so happy that it was the chosen concept! From there, we looked at photographer’s portfolios and chose the wonderful Gustavo Marx. We did a casting with editor Sarah Shumway and the photographer, and had about 40 models show up that matched the general description of the main character. From there, Gus shot some gorgeous pictures of our model and we had the hair and makeup get progressively darker and more wild with each set of pictures so that we would have plenty to choose from for all 3 books.

Gus photographed the girl on the cover of Incarnate in full color and then, in post, Joel worked up a beautiful array of hues that make the cover stand out so much. From the gorgeous butterfly he overlaid, to the flash of colors he used, Joel and Gus really combined their strengths to get the very best out of the photoshoot.

Does it give you a thrill to see the books you worked on out on the shelves?

A: For me, seeing a book on the shelves that I worked on from the very beginning is so rewarding. While my artwork isn’t typically on the cover, I love seeing the final book jacket out in the bookstores, know that I helped conceive of the concept, whether it be an illustration for a tween book or a photographic treatment for a teen cover. It’s satisfying to be there from the beginning, helping to mold the way the package comes together and help make it all cohesive.

What are some of the other covers/books you have worked on?

A: I’ve been at Harper since 2000 so you can imagine that there is a long list of books! Joel and I have tag-teamed on a bunch of books, including Divergent (read a review), Sweet Venom, and Dark Eden. In the tween area we’ve worked on The Billionaire’s Curse and Walls Within Walls, and Vanishing Acts together, just to name a few.

I also love working on tween fiction—some of my faves are The One and Only Ivan, The Cabinet of Earths, and Nest for Celeste. Thanks for this opportunity! I LOVE Incarnate and can’t wait for it to hit the bookstores! What an amazing read—and it was such a fun cover for Joel and I to work on.

My clue for the password is . . .First word: W. Remember, there are no spaces in this password!

Onwards to the Clue Bloggers!

Read a review of Incarnate.

With over a decade under its belt, Caught in Crystal could be forgiven for reading its age. Yet there is nothing in the text or story that feels out-dated or antique. Quite the opposite, there is a zesty vibrancy to the writing that is makes it an immersive, enjoyable novel.

Innkeeper Kayl has gone to a great deal of trouble over the years to make herself unremarkable. All she wants is to run her inn and take care of her children. And for 15 years it has been easy, but some things are too dark to lie quiet.

Rousted from her peaceful life by both friends and enemies, Kayl has to take up the sword she had hidden away and remember who she had been before. A Justice of the Sisterhood of Stars, one of the First Star of Kith Alunel. Until the Twisted Tower and the terrible thing that had broken them, the thing that once more threatens the Sisterhood.

Hunted by the cruel Magicseekers and viewed with distrust by the Sisters, Kayl has only her husband’s old friend, the cursed mage Glyndon Shal Morag, and the manipulative Silver Sister Corrana to depend on.

Reluctantly, resentfully, Kayl has to be remarkable again. Or maybe none of them will survive.

Wrede is a consummate storyteller and in Caught in Crystal she has a good story to tell. The plot is a fairly straightforward one, but works well for it, Wrede is too good of a writer to need to blind her reader with body swerves. Instead the story canters along at a good clip, and doles out clues and revelations at just the right spots to invigorate potentially flagging interest,

She is, in fact, a bit too good at that. I picked the book up at 11 on a Tuesday night, planning to read a few pages before going to sleep the next day. At four o’clock in the morning, I figured there were only five pages to go so I might as well finish. Everytime I reached the resolution of one scene, Wrede hooked me back with the promise of another.

It helped that The characters in Caught in Crystal are so well crafted. Wrede rarely puts a foot wrong in crafting the characters who populate Lyra. Impossible to give all the cast a full and fulfilling inner life, of course, but the ones that Kayl and the readers spend time with are well-fleshed out and believable.

No one more so than Kayl, who might just be the most unexpectedly awesome protagonist of the year so far. She is stubborn, emotionally articulate, occasionally self-righteous and unenthusiastically pragmatic.

The latter is a gold seal for me, I love me a pragmatic hero.

Her children, Mark and his older sister Dara, are also well scripted characters. Unlike so many fictional children they are neither Uncanny Valley precocious or simply trotted out at intervals to be imperilled, rescued or brats. Their bickering provides a few chuckles and they have as much to contribute to the plot as some of the adults.

The world of Lyra is also a solidly convincing one, with a rich history and established tensions. Although since this was originally the fourth book in the series, that is only to be expected.

This isn’t a book for fans of Game of Thrones continent spanning epics or Richard Morganesque grim-dark novels. Kayl’s quest is very much a traditional adventure and although there are a few fight scenes, and references to systemic prejudice towards non-humans, the details tend to be elided.

That said though, it is kind of nice to read a novel with a plot that can be believably resolved in roughly 300 pages and isn’t rife with misery, disease and undertones of sexual violence. I like an epic as much as the next fantasy nerd – and a bit of grim-dark adds spice, although universal misery generally bores me – but sometimes a chance is as good as a rest. Caught in Crystal is a traditional fantasy romp, with a grown-up hero and some very nice writing.

Look out for the rest of the books in the Lyra series from Open Road publishers: The Raven Ring, Shadow Magic, Daughter of Witches, and The Harp of Imach Thyssel. Or watch a video with Patricia Wrede herself:

It isn’t easy.

After her latest escapade sees Abbie chasing a pickpocket through the insalubrious streets of London, she is sentenced to charity work at family friend Dr Bartlett’s Whitechapel Hospital. Perhaps it was intended as an object lesson about what happened to independent young girls with no visible means of support, since most of Bartlett’s patients are prostitutes and the poor. For Abbie, however, it was a chink of light in an increasingly stultifying life.

Except it is 1888, the year Jack the Ripper stalked the prostitutes of Whitechapel, and Abbie is having horrifying visions of the murders. Caught up in the Ripper’s web of violence and secrets, Abbie must discover the truth behind their connection before anymore people die. With the help of Dr William Siddal and Simon St John, Abbie uncovers an ancient plot and a heart-breaking connection to her past.

Author Amy Carol Reeves’ is a scholar of 19^th century British Literature and has been published in a number of academic publications. Ripper, however, is the first dip of her toe into the Young Adult genre. It shows a little bit.

Reeves is a good writer, if sometimes a little detached, and is obviously passionate and knowledgeable about the period she is writing about. Her narrative skills are exceptional, and she deftly weaves disparate threads of conspiracy, co-incidence and just plain old make-believe into a convincingly tapestry of events.

Abbie is an easy heroine to like and the required romantic sub-plot is fairly deft handled, with both love-interests written with a nice mix of charm and conflict, and never eclipses the main plot. Even the gimlet-eyed and repressive grandmother is nicely developed, with a careful thread of care under her worry about status and respectability.

However, the book is something of a historical gumbo, with a few too many co-incidences and twists thrown in for flavour. It just ends up being a bit top-heavy, weighted down with coincidental back-stories and surprise connections.

Most of those connections were quite good – I actually didn’t know that the poetic Rosettis had a connection to vampire canon and wish I had used that first – but there were just so many of them. It ended up feeling layered on rather than deft and clever.

On the whole this was an enjoyable first effort from Reeves, with a solid plot and a nice, steady build up of tension. The villains were self-righteously repugnant and the insidious Max was a complex, frightening character. Occasionally it just all felt a little neat – no character just met another, there were always multiple threads that tied them into events – but it was still a ripping yarn and a fun read.

Let’s be honest, casting Russell Tovey, best known as George, everyone’s favourite werewolf on Being Human, in the Sherlock episode ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ was either going to be a stroke of genius or an act of utter madness. Aside from the occasional snicker as he crunched about in the forest, it was good. There was the occasional urge to try and resolve the discrepancies between the two shows, but Tovey quickly established Henry Knight’s character as distinct.

Other than that bit of controversial casting, this was a good episode with the occasional terribly, terribly convenient bit. Writing is all about unlikely convenience of course, but the point is to stop the viewer/reader in rolling their eyes and exclaiming, ‘How convenient!’

Henry Knight was tragically orphaned on the moors many years ago, when his recently widowed father got torn apart by a monstrous beast during a father-son walk. This, obviously, left Knight with more than a few issues. Issues that come to a head after his therapist sent him back to the moors where he found the, aforementioned, footprints.

This is, of course, the updated Sherlock Holmes, so the superstitions evoked aren’t those of demon dogs and curses but of conspiracy theories and genetic experimentation. There is a military research facility on the moors, a Porton Down with more monstrous hounds – and the theory is a beast escaped from there to ravage the countryside. It maps perfectly. I did give Sherlock rather a hard time over what the did to Adler last week – which I still hold are true, no matter what Moffat tweets as law* – so credit where credit is due. This was excellently done.

After a brief visit to the military base – where the personnel don’t officiously check the ID like they do at every other checkpoint in the entire world, since ‘Mycroft practically is the British government’ – they head out to the moors where they see the angry puppy.

Or at least Knight and Sherlock do. Knight is shaken, but thrilled to have his story confirmed. Sherlock’s reaction is a bit more complex. On the surface he is afraid, uncertain and angry at himself for both reactions. He is, after all, Sherlock Holmes. He does answers, not questions. Yet it is almost like he – who had earlier been pestering Watson for drugs to relieve his boredom – is high. He is sweating, his hands are shaking and he is manic. He even has a row with his best friend, sending him humphing into the night.

He might not like the way seeing the dog made him feel, but feeling anything so strongly is like a narcotic. Something to focus on, to stop his brain noticing everything else.  Watson has more to do this week than last, but this week Holmes brain is front and centre. We see it work.

The narcotics connection is one Sherlock comes to himself the next day, deciding that he must have been drugged. He’s almost right, but the reaction to emotion wasn’t just the drug, there’s a lot more truth to uncover. The truth about hounds and liberty and, at the very end, death.

After the mixed feelings of ‘Scandal in Belgravia’, this week was pure, guilt-free enjoyment. Sherlock being Sherlock, and John always underestimating exactly what that means. There were a few, as mentioned, very convenient moments but on the whole it was just an hour and a half of fun, clever television.

Ending with a quick glimpse of Moriarty in a cell. By the look of things, something has gone very, very wrong since last we saw him. He is looking a bit more deranged than usual.

Eternal Law, UTV. This isn’t going to be a new Being Human, unless it develops a lot more … meat in the next few episodes, but it was a charming and entertaining way to spend a sickly hour on Thursday evening.

One night lawyer Tom Greening makes a rough landing in a York cornfield. It isn’t as bad as it sounds, he’s flying Angel Air. Played with wide-eyed innocence and infectious joy by Ukweli Roach, Greening is an angelic chorister assigned to earth for the first time. A rookie on the beat, so to speak. This dismays his partner, veteran angel and grouch Zak Gist, Samuel West, and intrigues Tobias Menzies saturnine fallen angel Richard, ‘Is it all hands to the pump?’ Greening is too busy admiring ladybugs and stars to care.

Gist and Greening, Zak insists on that order, are lawyers. They could, a smooth and very posh voice-over informs, have been tinkers, tailors, soldiers or spies. Whatever was needed. They are in York to help anyone who needs them, ably assisted by the mysterious Miss Sherringham, Orla Brady.

It isn’t entirely clear who Miss Sherringham is, but Richard (who is obviously there to not-help people) implies that she is human. Also that he would like to get ‘jiggy jiggy’ with her, but we will forgive him that since he is the best thing in the show and evil.

The first case the angels have to deal with is that of a rooftop sniper who opened fire on a market and was caught, red-handed, by Greening. This is where one of the short-comings of the show shuffles sheepishly into view. Despite being witnesses, Greening and Gist end up as the shooter’s lawyers, and Richard is prosecuting the case. Think about it on more than the surface and the bits start to crumble. Surely Gist, and especially Greening, wouldn’t be allowed to testify? Do they even know the law? Is it just down-loaded into their heads? Whose place did Richard take, or did he possess someone already there?

Yes, their employers are God and Devil. But if they are willing to intervene that far, then why not further? Why do the angels have to pretend to be lawyers at all? What about free will?

For now, we can let it go. It was a very packed episode, maybe the details will be hammered out later.

Meanwhile, in addition to trying to clear the name of the rooftop shooter, Zak also had to deal with a ghost from his past. Hannah, Hattie Morahan, a young lawyer with some connection to his last, botched, mission. From the longing looks and angelic bath-spying, I assume it was a romantic entanglement. Something forbidden angels.

This is actually the weakest part of the storyline. It isn’t the fault of the characters or the writing, but rather the setting. I have not, personally, ever been to York. (It appears to be absolutely gorgeous) However, if their hospitals are at all like the one Hannah was rushed to after the accident I want to move there. It had rolling green lawns, everything was spotlessly white and patients not only had their own private rooms, they had huge bathrooms with posh free-standing baths that they soak in late at night.

Admittedly, patients do apparently sometimes die for no particular reason and nobody notices – not even when the angel pops in and pflashes you back to life. To be fair, it is possible the Trust spent all their funding on the baths and couldn’t hire nurses or doctors since I don’t remember seeing one.

Really, it was a very strange hospital.

At the moment the show appears to be a straight-forward legal procedural, only with angels instead of renegade blokes, spurned politicians wives or genii’ with no actual degree. It is a nice bit of fluff, but if they want to turn into a cult classic they need more grit than just a bit of tart language. They need an arc, an in-universe storyline that at least three out of five episodes contribute to. It would be easy to set up. Let’s call it The Job Protocol.

Hannah. Save her or corrupt her. Which will it be?

We know she’s going to work for Richard, so why not? Her soul is the chit, or easier to justify with a supposedly benevolent being – her future is the chit. Sometime in the future she is going to do something terribly important that will, depending on the choices made here and now, be either good or bad. So the angels, and Richard, are here to make sure she leans to their side.

If you want something to be a cult series, you have to give nerds like me a reason to speculate. That’s what we thrive on, theories.

Public Enemies, BBC.

Eddie Mottram, played by Danny Dyer-a-like Daniel Mays, has just served 10 years for murdering his girlfriend and is out on parole. His parole officer is Paula Radnor, the lovely haired Anna Friel, who has finished a suspension for inadequately supervising a parolee who went on to murder a girl. She, determined not to make the same mistake twice, is by-the-book officious in making sure that Mottram abides by the conditions of his release.

No trouble. No girls without telling them everything. No going near his victim’s family.

Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a drama if Mottram did as he was told. In short order he has bumped into Georgia, that was the poor, uncast girlfriend’s name, on the street, shagged a co-worked from the garden centre in the shower and missed a curfew. He thought that when he got parole he would be free – but it’s more like he can see freedom, without being allowed to touch it.

A three-parter, the first episode was interesting. There was something striking in watching Mottram try and fit back into a society he hardly recognised and friends who had known him before. The awkward see-saw swing between the familiarity of childhood friends and the memory of exactly what he’d done. Equally interesting was watching Radnor try to find the right balance of suspicion. She was meant to be watching him, measuring his risk, but how much was too much? How much was fair.

Then Mottram ends up yelling through her letterbox, ‘I’m innocent!’

After that, of course, it was a who-dunnit. With Mottram, Radnor and Mottram’s sister trying to convince the world of his innocence. Failing. Trying again.

It has to be said, Radnor doesn’t seem to have been a very good parole officer. She went mismanaging one case so badly that someone died and the next so badly that she ended up breaking the law by helping her parolee chase an appeal. Something that could send him back to jail. Not only that, she ended up making secret calf eyes at him while he smoked roll-ups in her car and put his feet on her dashboard.

The problem with Public Enemies was that it didn’t seem to be sure quite what it was – drama, crime, romance, whodunnit? Instead, it sort of flip-flopped between them with varying degrees of conviction. There wasn’t enough time allocated to actually craft a proper mystery so they just tagged on a random confession, the drama wobbled off once the whodunnit was introduced and the romance…

I know good girls are meant to like bad boys, but Radnor’s neat career woman going heels over tailored jacket for the crude, swearing and violent Mottram was a hard line to sell. She looked fragrant; he looked like he scratched a lot. Still, there are odder matches out there and once he is free they will have one thing in common, they are both unemployed.

Emmerdale, UTV. Christmas is the season for crying in the soaps. Babies, beatings and blow-ups. In Emmerdale most of the drama happened before Christmas, and one of the major ones was local bad-boy Cain getting three shades of shite kicked out of him on his way home from the pub. There were no shortage of suspects. Never a particularly likeable sod, Cain had spent the last six months aggravating everyone he met.

In no particular order there was:

Amy, the teenage girl he got pregnant and terrorised into having an abortion – except she didn’t – who then gave birth in a graveyard.

Val and Eric, Amy’s legal guardians

John Barton, the farmer he had cockolded.

Moira Barton, the farmers wife who he had despoiled and then revealed all to her husband just for kicks.

Jai Sharma, the local candy maker who had been the target of Cain’s brutality over the fact he was marrying Cain’s ex Charity. This included causing an accident that could have killed Jai’s parents, sleeping with Jai’s little sister and sending him a cellphone picture and killing their cat.

Charity, who really wanted to marry Jai. She is also Cain’s cousin and the father of his daughter, Debbie. (Debbie was adopted, which is why she doesn’t have the traditional biblical name. Much to the gratitude of younger Dingles, the whole family seems much more relaxed about naming now.)

I think that is pretty much everyone? There were other people in the village with reason to want him dead, but none recently. ANYHOW, Cain survived the beating and accused Jai. Who was promptly the target of a hate campaign by Cain’s large and enraged family, despite the fact none of them could stand him a week before.

(Particularly affected was Cain’s nephew Aaron, who earlier in the year helped his boyfriend, who had been paralysed the Christmas before in a train accident, commit suicide, who attacked Jai on multiple occasions. It is hard to work out the details. Aaron has always been volatile and Cain, his uncle and object of admiration, being injured has clearly dredged up a lot of old feelings.)

The only one who didn’t? Zac, Dingle patriarch and Cain’s father. Who also beat him half to death with a tire-iron. The Dingles aren’t a very functional clan sometimes.

I wasn’t the only one who called it, but call it I did! Can’t imagine they are going to send Zac to jail though, the Dingles are popular.

Sherlock, who has been impatiently auditioning a series of boring, boring and moderately interesting clients since his last confrontation with Moriarty, is dragged to Buckingham Palace in a sheet. For those interested, Benedict Cumberbatch has very nice feet and even flashes a bit of bottom at one point. Reluctantly intrigued by Adler – who works professionally under the name ‘The Woman’ – he agrees to retrieve pictures of a certain ‘young female person’ who dallied with the dominatrix.

He will, he boasts, have them by the afternoon. It turns out not to be that simple. Adler knows that he is coming, and proceeds to catch the usually poised detective on the wrong foot. She challenges and teases him, always keeping him not entirely sure where he stood with her. Part of it is sex, Adler is a knowing, gleeful sexual predator, but as much is the challenge. Adler isn’t easy for him dissect.

Some clever banter, a bit of whipping and one attack by angry, armed men later – Sherlock is embroiled in a relentless, fast paced plot that frustrates, intrigues and challenges both him and the reader. The secret of writing a mystery is to give the readers enough so they aren’t completely confused, but not enough to solve the crime before the detective. Steven Moffat does a good job with that. I never quite drew ahead of Sherlock, but sometimes I managed to keep up with him and I was usually a bit more on the ball than Watson.

The twist with Adler certainly caught me by surprise, perhaps it wouldn’t have if I wasn’t familiar with the original source material. Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Scandal in Bohemia‘ might have been the inspiration for the episode, but this was a very different story to the original. In some ways it improves – there is no denying this was a brilliant, compelling bit of writing – but in others I don’t like what they did to the mythology. More on that later though. First, we’ll talk about what did work.

Although Martin Freeman’s Watson had a few fun moments in this episode – his successful blog and a brief assault on Sherlock that was quite clearly the result of some repressed rage – the meat of it all went to the lovely, dark triptych of the Holmes brothers and Adler and their clever, twisted, almost incestuous games. Adler might not be their kin by blood – a twist too far – but intellectually her mind works in the same way. She shares Sherlock’s pure delight in intellectual puzzles, yet is worldly enough to match wits with Mark Gatiss’ Mycroft. It is a delight to watch Pulver on the screen, there is a glee in her Adler, playing games all the way to the finish line, and her fascination with Sherlock was wholly convincing.

Yet it is the fraternal relationship between the brilliant, weird and damaged Holmes brothers that catches the imagination. The episode was rife with hints about the brothers childhood – ‘There’s a whole childhood in a nutshell,’ Sherlock says caustically of his brother’s offer to ‘be mother’ – and glimpses of the odd but genuine affection between them. Most people might not recognise it as affection, but it is probably as close as either brother can get. It is also interesting to compare how the apparently more socially capable Mycroft is usually alone in scenes, while the always venomous Sherlock is surrounded by people who care. There is a gentle, philosophical moment in a hospital corridor where the brothers contemplate how they don’t work quite right, and caught in profile the two very disparate actors look momentarily, strikingly similar.

Which brings us back to the elements about the show I didn’t like. Taken on its own merits, Moffat’s ‘Scandal in Belgravia’ is a brilliant bit of storytelling and a worthy return to the screen for BBC’s modern day Sherlock. It is when you compare it to the original that problems start to crop up.

Usually I do not object to adaptations taking liberties with the original material. After all, the unaltered story is always going to be available for reference and enjoyment. Narratively, that is what happened here. Moffat has updated Conan Doyle’s tale into some new and interesting. The problem is that the changes are indicative of something rather discomfiting regarding the role of women in the mythology of BBC Sherlock.

Spoilers ahead. Go watch it on iplayer if you want and come back.

Conan Doyle’s Irene Adler was an intelligent, charming and ultimately good woman. She matched wits with Sherlock and came out ahead on her own merits, impressing Sherlock with her morality* and her wit.

In Moffat’s adaptation Adler’s agency was for rent. She was a dominatrix, but she was never in control. Her actions, her interactions, were influenced by a man. I doubt it was Moffat’s intention, but the uncomfortable implication was that, of course, a ‘mere woman’ couldn’t outwit Sherlock. She couldn’t even be the architect of her own salvation, or even her own sexuality. A woman who spent her life controlling her sexuality surrendered it to Sherlock.

It was uncomfortable watching that unfold on the screen. Particularly when you look at the other women in the BBC Sherlock mythology – the revolving door of Watson’s women who he lets Sherlock cheerfully insult? Loo Brealey’s endearing, but increasingly dismaying Molly Hooper, a clever young woman who grovels like a lackey under Sherlock’s abuse? Mrs Hudson is the closest thing to a positive female figure in the mythos, and while I find Una Stubb’s portrayal fun there are still issues with it.

It’s just a shame. I really wanted to enjoy this episode, and I did – it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunate. Poor Irene Adler, apparently being a strong, capable woman in the Sherlock mythos really gets in the way of story telling for some reason.

Young Pip running over the marshes, nearly as scared of his vicious, unpredictable  sister as the brutal convict in the marshes, is played by the engaging young actor, Oscar Kennedy. His Pip is quiet and tentative, always aware that his welcome in the forge is conditional, for all his sister boasts of raising him ‘by hand’, but with a good heart. Perfect prey for infant Black Widow Estella to cut her fangs on, under the cobwebby Miss Havisham’s sickly eager guidance.

Gillian Anderson’s performance as Miss Havisham is not going to go short of praise. Pale, mad eyed and distrait, she maunders around Satis House in shabby silk and frayed, teased hair. Younger than most Miss Havisham’s the shadows of beauty hang around her, but she despises it. She tells Pip that she is dead and picks at herself constantly, like she is trying to peel away the skin to let her ghost out.

She is a dreadful creature, spiteful and mean, cruel to her family and crueller to the infant she bought to prune like a bonsai tree into a beautiful, heartless thing. Pathetic too, though. All those years dedicated to revenge, yet she never took it herself. When she was wronged she crawled back into Satis House and dragged it closed around her, her only cruelties practiced spitefully and pettily on litle boys.

Young Estella’s actress, Izzy Meikle-Small, who we will be seeing on screen in 2012 in Snow White and the Huntsman, deserves her share of the kudos. Her performance is more muted than Anderson, but the echoes of Havisham’s madness are in the way her eyes widen eagerly at cruelty and the frozen poise of her hands and still, smooth face. Her perfect posture can’t hid the fact that there is something just broken in her.

We see less of her adult version in this episode, just a brief glimpse of Vanessa Kirby in a very ugly blue dress. Mostly what struck me was how much she looked like Juliet Landeu as Drusilla in Buffy. It was quite odd.

Older Pip, played by Douglas Booth of Worried About the Boy, got more screen time. Booth is a very good-looking young man, distracting so when he is meant to be playing a poor apprentice working his hands to paws in the forge. I don’t expect them to black up his teeth or anything, but he could at least have looked a bit more scruffy. He didn’t even have a smut on his face.

There seemed to be some effort to make Pip a little less of a repellent little toad than he was in the books. Estella shows more interest in him, presumably the BBC felt Pip’s persistent pursuit of a woman who constantly tells him she isn’t interested would come across as more stalker than romantic. It doesn’t altogether work. In good part because they seem to have excised Biddy, the girl that Pip knew he should have loved but didn’t, who helped Joe take care of the comatose Mrs Joe.

Without her, it just looks like Pip took his inheritance and took off – leaving the only person who has ever loved him to struggle alone in the forge and with taking care of his ailing wife. Hardly admirable – although maybe understandable. Hopefully, Pip will send money home to help but it seems unlikely.

For all that though, it was hard to like the show. In part, because I never liked Great Expectations. I studied it at school and I despised Pip, I resented every small advance he gained and cheered his downfalls. My interpretation of the ending veers away from both the original and revised endings, to paint Estella as an unrepentant serial killer who leaves Pip to wallow in his straitened circumstances and takes off to kill people in America. So, the adaptation was always going to have to work hard to win me over.

The other thing is, everyone but Joe is horrible in some way – either physically or morally. It is part of how Dickens writes. Everything is heightened, to almost pantomime levels, including the characters. In Great Expectations it is harder though, because there are few redeeming characters, and they are rarely seen. Pip is the viewpoint character, it is his voice telling the story, and he is a…well, little toad.