Sherlock Book Review - The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Posted by Steve Emecz on
Mr. Finch is new to the world of Holmesian pastiche, but one hopes that he’ll make a triumphant return. The stories in this book were written with the noblest intentions: For his grandchildren. Like all great Holmes collections, they cover a wide variety of puzzles and locations. My particular favorite is the second in the book, “The Pike at Saltmarsh”, which is both mysterious and atmospheric. Highly recommended.
In one respect, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a dismal failure. He had no success at all in killing off his key character at the Reichenbach Falls. Not only did he himself resurrect Sherlock Holmes, but a host of others followed suit. Holmes continues to roam the world at large, a familiar presence on page and on screen, as well as across the whole range of other modern media. As for his literary afterlife, MX Publishers alone has 150 or so Sherlock Holmes authors, and more than than 500 Sherlock Holmes books in its catalogue. One of their most recent releases, Geoffrey Finch's The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes, rings so true in every detail that, at first glance, it might have been transcribed from some long-lost manuscript. But this is a Holmes subtly reimagined for our own times. His exchanges with his loyal companion Dr Watson are recorded with humour and wit, and Watson only confirms our own suspicions when he says, at the conclusion of one of their adventures, "You pretend indifference, but I know otherwise" (241).
The mysteries facing the pair in these "uncollected cases" are typically intriguing. Who keeps laying flowers of various numbers and colours on a grave, only for them to vanish soon afterwards? Why did a woman living rough on the edge of Exmoor entrust the local vicar with a precious necklace and locket before disappearing? And how on earth did a highly prized fossil go missing from its locked display case in the Natural History Museum? As in any good detective tales, such puzzles lead to trails with several wrong turnings and not a few risks (at one point, Holmes falls out of a tree), culminating in surprising conclusions that are nevertheless perfectly logical in retrospect. All this, of course, is very satisfying, quite unlike the messiness of real life, which invariably defeats logic and rarely yields neat answers.
Top to bottom: (a) Holmes and Watson hunt their prey in London. (b) Holmes engaged in chemical experiments, with Watson looking on. (c) Holmes immersed in music at a concert.
Holmes, on whom the success of the collection ultimately depends, is as compelling as ever. Highly perceptive, he is not entirely dependent on his deductive methods: he is good at thinking outside the box, and not above employing subterfuge himself. Well may Watson ask, in mingled exasperation and admiration, "How the devil did you know...?" (66). Confident of his own powers, he is still eager to hone them, endangering the soft furnishings of their Baker Street rooms, not to mention the lives of the occupants, with his scientific experiments: Watson fears they will all be incinerated one day. Highly strung, he needs the solace not only of his tobacco but of playing and listening to music, and, less innocently, of injections of opium to relax. Relaxation, however, is only a prelude to inspired and unstoppable activity. He thirsts for challenges: after one case is solved, he frets for another. Watson explains, "He is never more alive than when puzzling over a problem, and never so depressed as when he has solved it" (302). How fortunate, then, that the challenges keep on coming!
Holmes and Watson on the move, deep in speculation.
Equally satisfying here is the Victorian setting. The cover plunges the reader right into the hubbub of Victorian London, where localities range from Southwark to Mayfair. From Baker Street, Holmes and Watson tote their Gladstone further afield, to places as far apart as the New Forest and Inverness. Engagements with suspects and villains occur in a variety of haunts, including a toll house, pubs, circuses, country homes, a castle, a cathedral, and museums great and small. As well as crimes like murder, forgery and kidnapping, they uncover many of the age's casual cruelties: a young girl forced into prostitution to help her family; a child with special needs brought up in seclusion, and in danger of being exploited for show; a high wire performer with no safety-net to cushion his fall. Lack of the health and safety regulations which seem so irksome today must have cost many Victorians their lives.
The author's touch is very light, but solid research underpins settings and situations, most strikingly in the fossil mystery, which brings to life the paleontologist Sir Richard Owen, and in another adventure, where Holmes and Watson attend a seance — Conan Doyle's intrest in spiritualism is well known, although Holmes takes a commonsense approach to it here. Most important of all, familiar fictional characters themselves are totally convincing. These include not only the trusty Watson, whose advice Holmes rarely deigns to take; their long-suffering landlady, Mrs Hudson, who here evinces an unexpected passion for the circus; Holmes's elder brother Mycroft; his own paid "Irregulars"; and, of course, the professional detectives whom Holmes outdoes at every turn. It is all very entertaining, sometimes positively scary, sometimes laugh-out-loud amusing. Examples here would give too much away, but there is one episode in which Holmes's prodigious sneeze saves the day!
Romance, death, a bit politics, a bit of social commentary. There is a story for everyone. You will be entertained from beginning to end.
The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes will keep you engaged and entertained from beginning to end. There is romance, death, a bit politics, a bit of social commentary. There is a story for everyone.
We follow Watson and Holmes - through Watson POV - in various mysteries, from normal murder mysteries to creepy seances, the stories are atmospheric and full of peculiar and interesting characters.
The mysteries are well constructed, some are shorter than others and are actually too fast to form an opinion or to guess who did it. Some are quite ingenious. The stories are impossible to guess since it's almost always Sherlock who figures what's happening and then his deductions are revealed. I guess this is the point.
You can't help but like the originality of the stories, some stick out more than others as this is always the case. I must say that some choices were questionable, I didn't like a particular plot point in the first story and that took out my enjoyment a bit, but overall it was still fun to read.
Since these are short stories, they don't require much commitment. You can read them all of together or savour them and read a few at a time or sporadically. You will definitely enjoy this format if you're a fan of short stories. There is still a common thread among them and that helps have a sense of continuation. It feels like it's one book instead of several separate stories thrown together just for the sake of it.
I'm a fan of Sherlock Holmes, however I can't say I have read the original stories, so I can't judge whether or not the characters the author recreated are accurate. For what I know, I think the original style and characters are so unique that is impossible to imitate accurately. The characters still feel somewhat close to their inspiration.
Overall, I would recommend this collection to fans but also to the occasional Sherlock admirers.
The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes is available from this site with a share going to our good causes and also available from:
The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes presents eight new stories about Holmes which set the great detective against the background of Victorian England, an era of enormous progress, in science, transport, and medicine but which also witnessed a surge in urban poverty, prostitution and imperial adventurism. Each of the stories in this collection engages with an aspect of this background. In ‘The Sicilian Defence’, Holmes comes to the aid of a disgraced army veteran who has fallen in love with a Sudanese woman and incurred the wrath of her father, whilst in ‘The Archaeopterx’ Holmes has to recover an important fossil which has been stolen from the Natural History Museum. In ‘The Missing Heir’ Holmes is asked to find the heir to a great fortune, considered by his family to be mentally unstable, and in ‘The Dunwich Ghost’ he investigates the plight of an old army colleague of Watson’s who is haunted by the ghost of his dead wife.
The Holmes who emerges from these stories justifies the description of him by Watson as the ‘best and wisest of men.’ Whether investigating a gang of forgers, securing justice for a murdered prostitute or facing a Russian spy we see his ferocious intelligence alongside a strong humanitarian bias. Despite his idiosyncracies, his solitary temperament, his melancholia and addiction to cocaine, he is both a man of his time and a man for our time.
The author of this volume is Geoffrey Finch, an Associate Lecturer in English Language at the Open University. Geoffrey has taught at Universities in Africa, New Zealand and the UK. He lives in Greater London with his wife and their cat, Humphrey, who makes a guest appearance in the fifth story, ‘The Cathedral Cat’.
ISBN 9781787059498
Format Paperback
Pages 344
Also available in Hardcover