CBR11 BINGO: Classics (BINGO! Youth square to Banned square)
FINALLY! I know that I am so amazingly late to this party, but here I am. I missed the CBR Book Club reading of this. I have read the Lady Sherlock Series (Sherry Thomas) and the AMAZING The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (Alexis Hall) re-tellings. I watched the PBS show and the RDJ movies but never read any ACTUAL Sherlock Holmes stories or novels. Now I have. Ta-da!
As I suspected, the bulk of the book was about Sherlock and his crazy mind. However, I was surprised to find that the deductions that led to the capture of the culprit, at least in this first novel, didn’t seem nearly as convoluted as the re-tellings and movies. Maybe it becomes more complex in the other stories and books, but the typical “this is how I figured it out” monologue at the end wasn’t as mystifying. That’s not to say that I would have figured it out on my own, but it seemed a little less like pulling a rabbit out of the hat and more logical than the adaptations and re-tellings that I have seen or read.
As the story goes, wounded war veteran Watson is looking to share lodging expenses in order to procure a more livable space. He is referred to Sherlock, who is looking for a similar arrangement and they become housemates. Watson, mostly housebound due to his injuries, has a front row seat to Sherlock’s personal quirks, violin playing and strange array of visitors that turn up in the sitting room. Sherlock eventually reveals that Scotland Yard and others solicit his help to solve crimes and Watson is intrigued by his methodology. When a dead body turns up with no visible signs of trauma, Sherlock is pulled into the investigation by two rival Scotland Yard Inspectors eager for his help but less inclined to give him credit.
The story was pretty much what I had expected in terms of the relationship of Sherlock and Watson and the whole business of crime solving. What I didn’t expect was the backstory of the victims and the perpetrator. Mormons?! In a Sherlock Holmes book?!! This I did not expect. While I did enjoy this part of the story, the lack of transition was bizarre. It happened so abruptly, that I was almost convinced that something happened in the printing process and several pages of another story were bound in the wrong place. It wasn’t until character surnames appeared that I realized that it was truly part of the same story. A part, I don’t mind saying, that I would totally read if it was a stand alone novel.
Now that I have read one of the original novels, I don’t necessarily think that I needed to in order to appreciate the plethora of re-imaginings out there. All have their own unique take on an atypical hero or heroine using deductive reasoning to solve fairly convoluted crimes. However, I did enjoy reading it more than I thought I would. Somehow, I had expected it to be more dreary and formulaic. Far less “A-ha!” and pipe smoking than I had anticipated. Actually, it was pretty perfect reading in the finally here Fall weather with a nice cup of tea.
