Just finished this book - a murder mystery set among the Baker Street Irregulars that are the most devoted of the fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. It alternates between the real Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker exploring a murder in 1901 which eventually leads to Doyle's resurrecting Holmes (killed off in 1893) for new adventures, and the present day, when an Irregular explores the mystery of another Irregular, and searches for Doyle's missing diary for the 1901 period which would presumably explain why he brought Holmes back to life.
I kept stopping reading the book because the characters were just so lacking in interest. But because the book on the Crimean War that I was trying to read was even less interesting (yes, that actually surprised me) I kept coming back to it, and by the end I was actually looking forward to seeing how it came out -- or at least getting it over with.
The book reminded me a lot of a distinctly lesser version of my of my recent favorites The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason. Flipping back to my post on that book, I saw that it had the same elements I like - a historical mystery, good characters and a budding romance, but it was a far poorer treatment. It may have had something to do with the way the lead character was "cast" - he was peculiarly uninteresting (probably not a shock given that his raison d'etre was to be a Holmes geek) but no one ever treated him any differently. Without giving away too much, no one ever gave me a reason to care about the guy. I was actually far more interested in seeing how the stiff Arthur Conan Doyle worked - as well as how Bram Stoker acted.
Anyway, probably an interesting book if you like Holmes (I just can't seem to get into the subject - I prefer my mysteries with a really smoky brunette, a la Castle or Bones). But if you don't, I'd recommend Rule of Four. I think I may have to reread that one now.