What Child is This?

 By Bonnie MacBird

Illus. by Frank Cho

Collins Crime Club     2022

228 pages     Mystery

True that I haven’t read many modern versions of Conon Doyle’s Sherlock, but What Child Is This? came to me from a publisher’s rep, and I picked it up a couple of days ago. While it is not really a Christmas story, it takes place during the Christmas season, and includes a little boy born on Christmas day.

Actually, there are two mysteries told by Dr. Watson in the poignant story line. In the first storyline, a country aristocrat has lost track of his handsome son and asks Sherlock to see if he can be found. In the second story, Jonathan, the adopted son of a London couple, has almost been kidnapped on the street in the presence of Holmes and Watson.

Sherlock Holmes is hired to find the first young man, but his curiosity gets the best of him with the attempted abduction of the little boy. Thus,  the two mysteries occupy Holmes and Watson in the week before Christmas, and both are solved by Christmas Eve. A very clever young woman detective, Heffie O’Malley, aids the two men in their investigation and adds a note of humor to the proceedings.

Along with the mystery solutions, we learn a lot about the softer side of Holmes, through the eyes of Dr. Watson. For instance, in the book’s last scene, as Dr. Watson is heading home to celebrate Christmas Eve with his wife, he hears Sherlock Holmes playing his violin. “A poignant melody in a minor key rang out over the deserted, snow-covered street.” The tune was Greensleeves or at Christmas-time, What Child is This. Watson ends his musings, thus: “My friend Sherlock Holmes, who professed to hate the holidays, perhaps embodied the spirit of Christmas more than any man I knew. I smiled all the way home to Mary.”

It is not all Christmas joy and lightness in the mysteries faced in the novel. Holmes and Watson tackle two difficult topics—homosexuality, which most likely was a hushed topic in Victorian England, and child abuse. It was difficult to read about the women running the orphanage and child care center. Also exposed were the major differences in social status found by the detectives as they attempt to solve the attempted kidnapping. One of the gracious aspects of What Child is This? are the illustrations by Frank Cho. They are an unexpected and delightful asset to the book. The last illustration in the book is of Sherlock Holmes playing Christmas music on his violin. One can almost hear the haunting melody when gazing at the picture.

Bonnie MacBird  has a major fascination with the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. She lives part of the year in London, just off Baker Street near where Sherlock Holmes was purported to have lived. This is the fifth book in her Sherlock Holmes series. It was a delight to read her modern offering.

Bonnie MacBird’s website.