Death in the Air Reviewed By Sasha Jande

Death in the Air is a mystery novel by Shane Peacock. The main character in Death in the Air
is a young detective named Sherlock Holmes. The novel takes place in the Victorian era when London was gloomy and filled with criminals. One day Sherlock was watching Monsieur Mercure, one of the greatest acrobats in London, doing his performance at the Crystal Palace. While he was watching him, Monsieur Mercure’s trapeze bar suddenly snapped and he came plummeting down to the ground. Sherlock witnessed the whole thing. Sherlock didn’t think that a trapeze bar would just randomly snap so he started looking for anything odd about the bar. He noticed strange cuts on the bar and then he suddenly realized that this was all planed. A few days later he was walking down the street and he noticed that a big reward was to be given to whoever solves the case of Monsieur Mercure. Sherlock then became determined to solve the case and use the reward to go to school and to pay his rent.

Throughout the novel, Sherlock has been struggling making decisions. When he realized that capturing the Brixton Gang was going to be extremely risky, he started second guessing himself. Sherlock also had a very hard time dealing with Inspector Lestrade. Inspector Lestrade was the other man competing for the reward. Since the inspector was high up in the police department, he often restricted Sherlock from  searching for clues and looking around. This often angered or frustrated Sherlock There were many examples of the hatred between these two characters at the end of the book. Sherlock possess many interesting character traits. He is very observant, determined, and clever. All of these traits help Sherlock be the best detective he can be. Despair is a very big element in the novel. There were so many incidents in the novel where Sherlock would see something and feel depressed. Throughout the whole novel, Sherlock constantly felt lonely and sad. This Loneliness that Sherlock was dealing with often affected his actions. I think that it was a good thing that Sherlock was constantly feeling sad. The reason for this is because is Sherlock was happy, he would have more friends. These friends would have distracted him from looking for clues. If he got distracted, it would have taken him a long time to solve the case.

Shane Peacock did a spectacular job showing the central idea in this fantastic novel.  Mr. Peacock did such a good job showing the central idea that I could almost feel Sherlock's emotions. He always said what Sherlock was feeling inside and he described how he was feeling in great detail. I also think that Mr. Peacock made a very good choice choosing despair as the main theme in the novel. It really suited the  gloomy setting but it mainly suited the year that the book takes place in. In the past, there was lots of criminals, crime, and lots of people were poor, hungry, and depressed. All of these elements really complemented the theme of this book. I think that Shane Peacock did a very good job describing all of these elements. He described the setting very well and always was very clear on what was going on. All in All, Death in the Air really changed my view of the world. This book really taught me how hard people have it and that you should always be nice to people no matter what.