“Adventure of the Immutable Scourge”! Sherlock Holmes In the Realms of H. P. Lovecraft!

SHERLOCK HOLMES: the Great Detective. A man obsessed with cold logic and focused rationality.

H. P. LOVECRAFT: the 20th century’s undisputed master of macabre madness and cosmic horror.

What if the darkness of Lovecraft’s decadent New England overlapped into the Victorian era of Sherlock Holmes? What if a trail of clues led to impossible visions, malevolent gods and unspeakably eldritch vistas of terror? Could Holmes survive? Could his sanity survive?

That is the pitch from Belanger Books for its latest anthology Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.P. Lovecraft, and I am pumped to announce that my latest Holmes pastiche, “The Adventure of the Immutable Scourge,” appears in Volume 2!

October 1882. Sherlock Holmes has been a troubled man since returning from St. Petersburg and a mission for Czar Alexander III. Dr. Watson is convinced that work is the cure for whatever is distressing his friend and his prayers seem to be answered when the Comté Antoine de Chabrillane arrives with a most unusual case. For thirty-one generations the heir of the House of Chabrillane in Brittany has died at the age of 32, all apparent victims of a vengeful alchemist’s curse. Antoine, the last of the Chabrillane line, is about to turn 32 and is determined that the curse shall end with him, either by Holmes solving the mystery of his ancestors’ deaths or with his own.

Octavio Cariello’s cover for the “Lovecraft’s Worlds” adaptation of “The Alchemist.”

“The Adventure of the Immutable Scourge” reworks H. P. Lovecraft’s early weird tale “The Alchemist,” which I adapted into comics with Octavio Cariello for my graphic novel series Lovecraft’s Worlds. (If you’re not familiar with the story and do not have the time to read it right now, Blue Öyster Cult adapted it into a pretty cool song and I have posted the link below.) Both volumes of Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.P. Lovecraft are currently available for order at Amazon and they will soon be available at the Belanger Books website.