Young Miss Holmes casebook 1-2

This is not a review request. I found out about this book from wandering about online. It looked intriguing but I was worried. 

I thought it was going to be a Cousin Oliver style Mary Sue. In other words, a lame story exploiting Sherlock Holmes' name for an unrealistic child protagonist.  That is not the case. Sherlock Holmes remains the number mystery solver here and no one knows this better than Christie herself. She sometimes calls herself his "stupid niece" because she can't measure up to him. He's a regular character here and important to many storylines but he's still not in the "main cast" or takes the spotlight from them. 

The plots are the original Holmes stories but from the perspective of the Young Miss Holmes, Christie Hope. However, these are not simple re-treads with a younger and cuter protagonist. There is a lot of original content built up around the cases, and because Christie has her own way of solving crimes, even the cases themselves aren't the same. I read the original Red-headed League after reading this one here and it is very much a difference experience. You know those games where you can play through the same event as different characters? It's like that.

Christie is called "Holmes in miniature" by several characters and this is a concise way to put it. She is academically brilliant and solves cases for fun rather than Great Justice. Her social skills are marginally better and she has a great deal more compassion but she'd rather stay in the family library than gossip. While intelligent she is still a child and thus immature, and this where her Watsons come in.

Christie has "three Watson" so to speak: two maids and her governess. In place of the bromance of Homes and Watson themselves, this is more of a two big sisters and mother-substitute thing.  Grace, the governess, takes the biggest role in raising Christie to be a proper lady, because her parents are in India, but at the same time she also teaches her how to become a better detective.

The artwork is fantastic. It's cute without being cutes-y and does a great job conveying story as well as the manga's humor.

 There is a lot of funny stuff here. I have only read two of the original stories, so I may have the wrong impression, but I don't remember there being much to laugh about.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "Young Miss Holmes Casebook 1-2" an A+

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