He even has a signature chapeau, though his lumpy woolen toque is decidedly less dashing than a deer stalker. Jackaby certainly has the Doctor’s frenzied energy, and Sherlock’s lack of interest in social graces. In the Doctor Who meets Sherlock schema, Abigail is simultaneously the Doctor’s companion, and Sherlock’s Watson, creating a written record of her first case with Jackaby.

In the fall of 2014, Jackaby garnered a lot of buzz thanks to publicists characterizing this title as “Doctor Who meets Sherlock,” a bold claim that appears right on the cover flap of the book. Given Jackaby’s preternatural preoccupations, Abigail’s grounded perspective and eye for detail prove invaluable as they attempt to track the killer with the surreptitious assistance of Junior Detective Charlie Cane. Though the police steadfastly insist on a mundane explanation, Jackaby suspects something more unusual is afoot, but his lack of official standing hampers the investigation. When Abigail answers his advertisement for an assistant, she finds herself pulled into the investigation of a series of grisly murders. Jackaby, private investigator of supernatural crimes. Fortunately for Abigail, there is nothing respectable about R.F. In the New England of 1892, there is not much in the way of respectable employment for unaccompanied seventeen-year-old girls. But a monster in a suit? That’s basically just a wicked man, and a wicked man is a more dangerous thing by far.”īoarding school runaway Abigail Rook steps off the Lady Charlotte onto the docks of New Fiddleham with one suitcase to her name, and no job prospects to speak of.