DOYLE AFTER DEATH by John Sinclair

Publisher:  Harper Collins
Published:   November 26, 2013
ISBN:  978-0062305008
Genre:   Fantasy, Paranormal
Book format:  Ebook - ARC
Obtained via:  Publisher (Edelweiss / Above the Tree Line
Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

Three -1/2 hearts

Nicholas Fogg, wakes up for a brief moment in his Las Vegas hotel room. Well not quite wakes up.  You see, he’s dead.  But for that brief moment he sees his life as it was in the “Before” and then wakes again, on a lovely sandy beach in what he soon learns is the “After”.  I women named Fiona makes her way down the beach and greets Nicholas, giving him his introduction to the great beyond. Things aren’t so awful in the afterlife.  Almost everyone he meets asks for a cigarette and even though he cannot provided the requested item he begins to meet his fellow spirits. Well they aren’t quite spirits. At least not in Garden Rest, the place in the afterlife he’s landed in.

And he meets some very interesting people including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  As Nicholas begins to meld into life at Garden Rest he finds the local watering hole and learns about some of the unique opportunities awaiting us…him.  But not everything from his life in the Before has ended. 

Nicholas was a private investigator and when a resident of Garden Rest turns up, well dead, Doyle asks Nicholas for his help in finding the killer. 

I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fan and do enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of the famed fictional detective.  I hadn’t read John Shirley before but I couldn’t resist picking up his latest, DOYLE AFTER DEATH.  Mr. Shirley does not disappoint!  As I read along I had the sense of an adult ALICE IN WONDERLAND and Mr. Shirley himself speaks to that well-loved adventure.  But it is so much more.  It is a different kind of mystery with its fantasy / paranormal flavour.  I thoroughly enjoyed the world Mr. Shirley created as the afterlife.  As an added treat he includes an appendix at the end that includes a conversation with Dr. Doyle explaining more about the afterlife. 

I enjoyed the characters and how real life figures were interspersed through the story adding to the story.  DOYLE AFTER DEATH is a very unique story and it has something for everyone.  While not specifically a young adult book that age group would find something to enjoy in the tale that unfolds as well as adults.  There is mystery, humor, a smidge of romance, fantasy, historical and modern day figures and it all comes together in a really fun story.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.