221B Recs

Title: The Case of the Green Gown
Author: splix
Pairing: Sherlock/John, John/Mary
Length: about 209,000 words
Rating: explicit
Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, torture
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: ...Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.
---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier


Reccer's comments: Wow, splix has done it again! Enriched the Sherlock fandom with a marvellously clever story, literally hefty in almost every sense of the word.

Make sure you’ll have nothing important on for the next few days when you start reading this for you’ll be hooked and oblivious to the demands of reality. You’ll find yourself laughing and cheering, and grappling with the most horrendous angst, swearing and recovering from punches that go straight for the solar plexus and sobbing. Oh, there’s so much delicious bittersweet sobbing in this fic.

Then there’s the great characterisation throughout. All the well-known players completely IC there’s a whole array of fascinating OC’s. As usual everything is written in that exquisite language that’s this author’s special trademark.

Apart from an incredibly tightly plotted casefic that contains more than enough intrigue to fill at least two seasons of Sherlock this is a wonderfully crafted psychological study of the human condition and all those feelings that shape us into what we are: love, friendship, grief, greed, jealousy. Greatness and despicable flaws, both are shown in every character. And throughout it all both Holmes brothers suffer so nobly. After all, no one is better aware than they are that caring isn’t an advantage.

After the havoc Moftiss wreaked with S3 this fic helped me to recover my love for Sherlock the series, even long before Moftiss made it all better again with TAB. Everyone who has got huge problems with Mary should read this fic just to admire the nuanced approach to her personage. In this fic I often loathed her, despised her and really, really didn’t like her but throughout splix managed to make me sympathise with her plight. After all, Sherlock returning from the dead wasn’t exactly what she had bargained for.

But what’s the fic about? That I’m not going to tell for I don’t want to spoil your fun. Just start reading like I did and be mesmerised and enchanted like I was. You won’t be disappointed.

Highly, highly recommended!