Book #35

[katikat]

"The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective" by David Stuart Davies

♦ ♦ ♦

A very good Sherlock Holmes pastiche. A what-if scenario. What if John Watson wasn't John Watson but John Walker? What if he was dishonorably discharged? What if he was recruited by James Moriarty to spy on Sherlock Holmes?

What an intriguing idea! And the first third of the book is excellent, the set-up, Moriarty pulling all the threads together, weaving a net around Sherlock Holmes. I read it with a bated breath, curious about what would happen next. Unfortunately, Davies then tackles "A Study in Scarlet" in great detail and with that the story falls apart a bit.

"A Study in Scarlet" is, in my humble opinion, the weakest of all Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works. And Davies' version isn't any better. The second third is basically about Holmes and Watson's first case and Watson's courtship of Mary Morstan. Both of which the reader knows by heart, so the book starts to feel tedious.

The last third then leads to Reichenbach - where Holmes' encounter with Moriarty ends in a different way than in Doyle's books. During the last third you also finally start seeing and feeling the friendship between Holmes and Watson. Yet it cannot erase the boring middle.

This is the second book by David Stuart Davies that I read and I'm starting to notice a pattern - he knows how to write a strong beginning and an emotional ending but he flounders terribly in the middle. It's too bad. I would've loved to give the book more stars...