Yes, you read that right.

Flying. Zombie. Death. Monkeys.

Now, combining Sherlock Holmes with horror/supernatural elements isn’t anything new (if you recall I reviewed a crossover involving Dracula a while back) but I honestly have to say this book is something I never would have expected to exist. Luckily for all of us, Chris Wood and his ridiculous imagination came along and put together this insanity.

He called it “a B-movie in a book” and I can’t agree with him more. For those of you wondering exactly what “a B-movie in a book” means,  I came across this gem of a passage. I feel that it explains everything perfectly.

Ever mindful of the dignity of an English gentleman, we both dived into the hedge. Holmes reached into his coat and produced a broom handle with an egg whisk on the end. At the other end was a handle wired to the mechanism, to turn the rotors with his fingers at a safe distance from the teeth of the undead.

If the story wasn’t so over the top, it would be sacrilegious to include a line like that in a Holmes story, especially coming from the mouth of the great detective himself, but Wood makes it work. The story is filled with off-color jokes and humor quite unfitting a man of Holmes stature. Another hilarious aspect of the book is the illustrations.

Scattered throughout the story are old-fashioned drawings that are either taken from original Holmes novels, or are simply made to look as such. What makes them fantastic are the captions for each, which pretty much have absolutely nothing to do with the story, and just poke more fun at the Sherlock Holmes stories as a whole.

The book is a wonderful combination of satire and horror, and if you’re a fan of either genre it’s worth checking out. Or if you just like zombie monkeys getting their brains pulped by egg beaters. Whatever.

If you feel so inclined, you can buy the book here.