Honour Among Punks (The Complete Baker Street Collection) Book

So first of all I don't know why such a big deal is made out of this being an 'alternate London' or whatever because the supposed steampunk setting they were going for is almost completely absent. Now for me this isn't a problem because that's not what sold me on this book, but if that's what you're looking for then you might want to rethink this. Like there are a few times where you see zeppelins flying around and I guess some of the people who aren't punks dress in a more old-timey fashion ...but honestly for the most part it just seemed very 80s punk to me so I'm not sure why there is all the emphasis on a backstory they never really explore.

So, the good: I absolutely loved this as a Sherlock Holmes retelling. I feel like Sharon is an excellent version of Holmes and you can really see a lot of his mannerisms and behaviors in her. The same goes for the Watson character, who in this story is a medical student from America. I really felt like they did a good job taking all the classic things you would except from a Sherlock Holmes story and updating them with the punk scene. Also I just always love classics-retellings where they make the characters queer/women/POC so this was really great in general. This edition contains two different mysteries of 5 issues each and then a little bonus story and some artbook type stuff at the end.

And then the bad: Honestly I would have given this book five stars if not for one thing, and it is unfortunately something that you come across a lot in books from this period or earlier; its treatment of trans characters. This comes in during the second storyline where one of the characters is revealed to be a trans woman. Now I understand that some of the awkwardness of this by today's standards is just because they used different language and terms back then that we would definitely consider offensive today and I honestly do think they were trying to do a decent job with it, but it still definitely falls short and I could definitely see this part ruining the enjoyment of the whole story for a trans reader. I would say that if you're okay with stuff like Silence of the Lambs then you will PROBABLY be okay with this, although this is perhaps a bit more graphic, but I just wanted to say 'proceed with caution' and all that.