Cloud Cuckoo Land

When Holmes and Watson are visited by the young Miss Harding, they cannot guess that they are about to embark on one of their darkest and most mysterious cases. Miss Harding's late uncle has left his entire estate to one of four cousins, but only the cousin who solves an elaborate puzzle can claim the prize – a puzzle contained within the very fabric of the bizarre Atreus Manor. The house has already claimed the life of one of the cousins, and drove another to madness, and Miss Harding will happily give up her claim if Holmes can get to the bottom of the secret. But is she really ready for the revelations about her family that the world's greatest detective will unearth?

Cover art by Dave Elsey

Really pleased to have an original Sherlock Holmes story published in the wonderful Gaslight Gothic anthology, edited by JR Campbell and Charles Prepolec. It contains stories by some of the finest horror and Holmes writers around, including Mark Morris, Steve Volk, James Lovegrove and Angela Slatter, so I’m delighted to be in such fine company.

My story, The Cuckoo’s Hour, is partly inspired by the recent trend for 'Escape Room' puzzles, though it’s really born of my obsession with Gothic fiction, especially Poe, and livened up with a healthy dose of classic Horror inspiration from the likes of Hammer and Amicus, that I've loved since my teens. Indeed, some of the same themes were used in my recent Holmes novel, The Red Tower (no surprise really, as I wrote them concurrently), although The Cuckoo’s Hour is rather more ‘sensational’ as the Victorians would have it.

But don’t take my word for it: the first review is up already at Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer:

  

The opening story by Mark A. Latham, The Cuckoo’s Hour, is not only a strong opening story and one of the best in the anthology, but also one of the best Sherlock Holmes stories I’ve ever come across. Latham seems to have an innate understanding of the Holmes canon and characters, as well as how to write gothic fiction, to the extent that there are times when the story feels less like a pastiche and more like a piece of fiction Conan Doyle might have written in his later, more spiritual years. It’s effective as both a detective story and a piece of quiet horror, and features an ending that is genuinely unnerving, both in terms of its implications and the subtle way that Latham introduces such a twist. 

If you’d like to know more, there’s a webcast with the editors here.

Gaslight Gothic is available now!