Have you ever picked up a book in a bookstore and known instantly it was coming home with you? That’s exactly what happened with The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall when I plucked it off the shelf on Saturday. Glancing over the top-rated Amazon reviews (kimbacaffeinate sums it up as a “Sherlockian based tale set off planet and filled with magic, vampires, gods and limitless worlds,” and Sherry M. calls it “Clever and very funny queer mashup of Holmes/weird fantasy”) when I got home reassured me I’d definitely made a wise purchase.

But it was this blurb from Ruthanna Emrys, author of Winter Tide and Deep Roots, that convinced me I’d found my reading project for the week.

This book is so far up my alley that I discovered new, non-euclidean corners of the alley that I didn’t previously know existed. The world has heretofore suffered from a sad lack of queer consulting sorceresses, prudish-yet-romantic Azathoth cultists, existentially surreal urban planning, and post-colonial Carcosan politics.

Alexis Hall pays homage to Sherlock Holmes with a new — very new — twist on some of the most famous characters in literature, in a book that’s equal parts homage to Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft. The Affair of the Mysterious Letter is not the kind of book I expect to see from Ace Books these days, but that’s their logo right there on the spine. It was published by Ace on June 18, 2019. It is 340 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback and $9.99 in digital formats. The cover was designed by Adam Auerbach. Read the first six chapters (29 pages) here.