Jackaby
by William Ritter (Algonquin Young Readers, 2014)
A supernatural detective story that doesn’t overplay its hand, relying on clever but sensible plot progression and the charisma of the eponymous Jackaby – a cross between Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Matt Smith’s Doctor Who, narrated by a Victorian Clara Oswald John Watson.
Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror
by Mike Tucker (BBC, 2014); audiobook read by Neve McIntosh
Although featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, this novel labours along like the most interminable of Third Doctor stories; neither original in content nor polished in execution (think ‘Planet of the Spiders’ meets ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’). Neve McIntosh cannot save it.