Basketball fans will recognise Abdul-Jabbar as an NBA All-Star who has previously published an autobiography and children’s books. Here he turns his hand to fiction, taking on Sherlock Holmes’s shady older brother, Mycroft. It’s 1870 and Mycroft is still a junior government official, but his capacity for subterfuge and his elevation to puppet master in Sherlock’s later adventures is nicely established. The novel opens with occult goings-on in Trinidad and the plot thickens from there. We’re treated to plenty of derring-do: horse chases, sea voyages rife with murder, and a beautiful damsel who may or may not turn out to be a criminal mastermind. However, there is a serious through-line in the narrative: when Mycroft sets out for the Caribbean he is on the trail of a slave trade that is continuing well after it has been abolished.
