January 1, 2012
Lincoln, Poe, and Lovecraft have been repurposed into detectives of the paranormal, and here we find Charles Darwin tangled up with a species unknown to science. This Darwin had investigated "legendary creatures" as part of his studies, but secretly. Now a savage beast has attacked a railroad-building crew, slashing and eating horses and men. Since the Prime Minister knows that Darwin had a past interest in the "clawed ones," he charges the great naturalist to identify the critter. So Darwin checks out the mangled bodies and interviews witnesses with the help of Suzanne Dickinson, the railroad magnate's daughter. The workmen blame a local Druid cult, but Darwin asks other questions. The investigation is further complicated by recurrences of a mysterious malady that leave Darwin debilitated afterward with no memory of the episode. (The real Darwin had mysterious illnesses, but not of this Jekyll/Hyde sort.) VERDICT Projected for three volumes, this edgy story in smoky, clear line art may interest older teens and adults in the historical Darwin, who could lavish as much fascination onto sexual differentiation in barnacles and phototropism in plants as this fictional version devotes to legendary life-forms.--M.C.
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