A.J. Hall: The Bishop of the Northern Marches

The Bishop of the Northern Marches is the third in a series of Queen of Gondal ebooks by the author A.J. Hall. You might like to refer to their suggested reading order & more detailed series information. It is a quasi-historical AU of the BBC Sherlock series set (more-or-less) in three fantasy kingdoms devised by the Bronte children. It is also a cross-over with the BBC Life on Mars series.

While John and Sherlock have been spying and building alliances up on the Northern border of Gaaldine, various tensions are coming to a head in Brendelhame, the provincial capital. The last day of the Crown Princess Charis's solo visit to the city coincides with a local festival to celebrate the defeat of a Gondalian force there two centuries earlier. At which point a rigidly moralistic Bishop, who sees all tactics as legitimate in the war against Sin, decides to preach a sermon on the evils of the sexes straying from their God-appointed spheres. With a drink-fuelled mob on the rampage and numerous competing factions ready to take advantage of any opening all hell is about to break loose.