BLOG TOUR – The Druid of Death

Summary:

On the morning of the vernal equinox in 1899, Holmes is roused from his bed by Lestrade. The inspector has received a report of a girl brutally murdered at Stonehenge.
Upon arriving at the famed site, Holmes discovers the body of a young woman. On her forehead, painted in blood, is a druidic symbol. On her side, also in blood, is a message written in a strange language that neither Holmes nor Lestrade can decipher. The girl was also eviscerated and her organs placed around her body. As a final touch, branches from yew trees had been artistically arranged around the corpse.
Holmes senses a malevolent force at work, but without data, he is powerless. As the weeks pass, he slowly gathers information about the ancient druids and Celtic mythology and begins to assemble a small army of experts to assist him.
Expecting the killer to strike again on the summer solstice, Holmes and Watson travel to the Nine Ladies in Derbyshire, the site of another stone circle that harkens to druidic times. While they are holding their vigil, Lestrade and his men are off keeping watch over the stone circles at Avebury and several other locations.
The Great Detective’s worst fears are realized when on the morning of the summer solstice, he learns that the body of a young man has been discovered in the eye of the White Horse of Uffington. Like the first victim, he too has been marked with a druidic symbol and his body bears a message. Aside from the symbol and the message, the only other difference appears to be that his body and organs have been surrounded by willow branches.
Realizing full well that a maniac reminiscent of the Ripper is on the loose, Holmes and Watson find themselves in a race against time as they try to locate the cult, identify the killer and prevent another tragedy.

This book was a fantastic read for me that brought together three things that I can’t get enough of. I am always looking for a good book to read, especially one that has a twist around magic and Jack the Ripper.  The fact that this lived up to the legacy of Sherlock Holmes was definitely a plus.  A lot of times when you read modern day books that lift characters from older novels, especially ones like Sherlock Holmes, they end up falling flat and not reaching the real potential of the character. However, I found that this was not the case here. The characters were very true to life and to themselves, for the more well-known characters.  The plot also was very interesting. A man is committing murders that are pretty similar to Jack the Ripper, but with a Druidic twist. Holmes must follow the clues and leads to find the killer before they strike again.  The action and mystery definitely kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end, dying to know what was going to happen and if they were ever going to catch the killer.  At 187 pages (per Amazon), the book was a fast read for me and I devoured it in about a day. The suspense definitely helped with that as I didn’t want to put it down. I would definitely rate this with 5 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to anyone interested in Sherlock Holmes or Jack the Ripper, as both play a large role throughout the novel.