Sherlock Holmes and the Telephone Murder Mystery

Review: As you’d expect from one so thoroughly conversant with the Canon, the author captures the Watsonian style admirably (though his Holmes does say ‘think you?’ rather a lot), and his characterisations ring true. The murder of a photographer at Belmont, an artists’ retreat in Surrey, is brought to Holmes’s attention by Dr Watson, himself a guest at the establishment. Yes, Watson once said that he introduced only two cases to his friend - those of the Engineer’s Thumb and Colonel Warburton’s Madness - but that statement appeared in 1891, and the Belmont affair is dated to 1899. As in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson does a good deal of the preliminary investigation, and acquits himself well, but it takes Sherlock Holmes to unravel the complex tangle of passionate relationships - and then he gets his man as much by luck as by wit!

This is Conan Doyle’s Holmes, a brilliant but fallible figure. The book is handsomely produced to Breese’s usual high standards, and I’m happy to recommend it as a jolly good read.

Reviewed by: Roger Johnson, [District Messenger, 178, 1998]