Sherlock Holmes Book Review - Three Strikingly Original New Works
Posted by Steve Emecz on
Reviewed by Orlando Pearson
Mr MacGregor’s Holmesian trilogy of The Adventure of the Elusive Ear, The Adventure of the Fallen Soufflé, and The Adventure of the Ghost Machine gives the familiar Holmesian recipe a thorough remix.
Irene Adler replaces Mrs Hudson and is Holmes’s live-in lover at 221 B, a situation that Dr Watson has first accepted and then come to like as Miss Adler proves as entertaining as her very brief appearance in A Scandal in Bohemia promised. And Professor Moriarty has a devilish and fiendishly cunning daughter, Marie Chartier, who features in all three works.
Writing longer works (as opposed to short works) about Sherlock Holmes is a tough gig as the charm of Conan Doyle’s creation is sudden inspired insights and these are hard to sustain over fifty or so thousand words. Conan Doyle’s solution in three of his four novels was to have a long back story and in The Hound of the Baskervilles to have Watson investigating for a long period. Mr MacGregor’s solution of bringing in additional permanent characters works very well as both Miss Adler and Miss Chartier are so engaging. And your traditionalists need not be too put out as Mr MacGregor has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Canon and each book is laden with quotes from Conan Doyle. The works feature other notables of Holmes’s time -– Vincent van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Auguste Escoffier, Edward VII, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. Mr MacGregor quotes extensively from these too as well as giving fascinating biographical details.
Lots of jokes both of the laugh out loud and groan variety. Both sorts are excellent by me.
Strongly recommended to anyone looking for something both a bit canonical and a bit different.
You can find all of David MacGregor's books in his author profile.
David MacGregor Sherlockian Profile.