Richard Lancelyn Green (1953–2004)

Recently I've been watching through the Granada series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. It's a really great series for anyone into Sherlock Holmes or who likes mystery stories in general - the adaptation is mostly faithful and usually well paced to sustain the tension, the characterisation of Holmes and Watson is a joy and the acting, particularly by Brett, is absolutely superb. Sherlock is slightly "off" but never cruel or heartless and cares deeply for Watson and the people he helps. It made me want to read Holmes stories again.

I last read the stories themselves about 3 years ago. It was around the time I was just starting to read for pleasure again and during a pretty dark patch in my life. I read them all over the course of a few days and loved them. They inspired my interest in mystery and detective stuff, which has become my favourite type of fiction reading. Unfortunately I made no reviews or notes on my thoughts at the time but they clearly made a big impression on me. I read a few collections of Holmes fanfiction soon afterwards and although highly variable I enjoyed them well enough, as far as I know. There were definitely some high quality, entertaining stories.

Which brings me to now, and reading this book, the first Holmes I've read in at least 2 years. So far I've read the first 8 out of 11 - and I just haven't been grabbed by any of them. None of them are awful or anything. They just tend to lack either or both of a good mystery and good Holmes/Watson character writing. For example, "The Adventure of the Tired Captain" has a decent enough mystery but fails enough on character to seriously annoy on two points - first, it opens with Holmes displaying ridiculous misogyny, complaining about women being "too emotional" etc - I don't remember this being hyped up to this extent in the original stories but even if it was I don't care to read it over again. Second, near the end Holmes makes a near absurd failure of judgement if a murderer is using paraffin in some way and has hidden the body in a certain place, it's hardly a stretch to expect him to be using paraffin to start a fire to hide the body.

The Adventure of the Marked Man, where Holmes allows someone who (ending spoilers) attempted the murder of someone who was having an affair with his wife and is also a policeman to not only totally get away with it but also he will recommend him for a position at Scotland yard... holy moly. Same author does that thing where Holmes spouts off a bunch of deductions about people for pages just to show off, one of my last favourite qualities in a Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

The stories in this collection are drawn from a long history of Holmes pastiches and usually each author has a deep background in Holmes study. And yet they only seem able to hit on the *structure* of a Holmes story - Holmes and Watson in 221B, client visits, they go to location of crime, find clue, Holmes prepares denouement off screen, the criminal and method are revealed - with none of the character, excitement or spirit of the originals. It's possible I've just been spoiled by seeing such great adaptations of the originals so recently. Or maybe they're accurate to the original writing and I just have far rosier memories of them than they deserve. I really hope not.

After finishing reading: I was probably too hasty with my judgement because I rather enjoyed the last 3stories. Nothing spectacular, but they had the sort of elements I enjoyed and the last story had a silly but pleasant twist at the end. I still think the whole thing is nothing too grand but if you like Sherlock Holmes I doubt you'd regret reading it and a few of the stories are pretty good.… (meer)

This is an anthology or collection of Holmes adventures. Written by well known authors in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the introduction, the back story to each chapter/adventure is given along with a bit of a bio on the writer. They are a bit long to get through, but interesting. A number of these were written to either fill the gap when Doyle stopped writing Holmes, having become tired of the character, or at a later date to add to the story line of Holmes and satisfy the demand that still existed for the adventures.

They are not Doyle's Holmes, but run fairly close. I did enjoy them and I might just go back and read the Holmes adventures again...I do have the complete collection...somewhere.… (meer)