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Title: The West End Horror: A Posthumous Memoir of John H. Watson, M.D. by Nicholas Meyer ISBN: 0-393-31153-8 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Better Than the "Seven-Per-Cent Solution"
Comment: I was reluctant to read this one after the "Seven-Percent Solution," but Mr. Meyer disappointed me by writing a much better story.
This story appeared first in Play Boy, and the book is a longer revision of that one.
The story is about Murders that haunted the west end. Of course Sherlock Holmes cannot hold back when there are murders nearby.
The good thing about the book is that Mr. Meyer does not claim that any of the manuscripts provided by Doyle were forgeries. The bad thing is that he still uses real characters, like Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker, which I still say is dumb.
One other thing I hate about these pastiches is that they insist on saying that Watson was a real person, and that he used to publish his work under the pseudonym Conan Doyle, or else that Conan Doyle was the agent under whose name Watson used to publish works. I realize that this is one way to make things continue, but come on, we all know that we are only fooling ourselves.
Anyhow, I think the book might deserve 4 stars if not for the little drawbacks I mentioned above, and I am sure you are going to enjoy it, but try first to get it from the library, just in case you detested it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Gotta love Sherlock!
Comment: I've read The West End Horror 3 times and absolutely love it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes and I think Nicholas Meyer writes even better than Conan Doyle! I used part of the solution as an example in a project I did recently on the... well if I give you the topic, I'll also give you the solution to the mystery so I won't spoil it.
Rating: 4
Summary: a little disappointing
Comment: Unfortunately, I must confess to being a little disappointed with Meyer's second Holmes pastiche. First of all, he went overboard with the famous people. It was as if he was trying to pay homage to all his favorite writers at once. And all the famous people just hurt the story for me. Sigmund Freud in "The Seven Percent Solution" was okay because I don't think that the book would have been the same had Meyer created a fictional person to treat Holmes' cocaine addiction. But in this one, all the famous people just seemed completely unnecessary and I felt that the book would have been much better if Meyer had created fictional characters instead of putting Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, etc. etc. into the novel. Secondly, there weren't enough deductions in the book. And third, I felt that the book was too much about the mystery and not enough about the characters. Doyle's Holmes stories were generally a little more about the characters than the majority of this book was. But then this goes back to all the famous people. There was no need for Meyer to tell us about the characters because we already knew them. The last few chapters are very good as far as being a little more about the characters but most of the book was just too much about the mystery. I'm still going to give the book 4 stars though because it was well written and, as in his first pastiche, Meyer did well with Holmes and Watson. The basic plot of the book was also good and inventive and seemed like something that Doyle would have written. There were also enough interesting scenes that made the book well worth reading in spite of the problems that I had with it. To give just one example, there's a scene involving Holmes' indoor target practice and it is discussed in a little more detail than in Doyle's stories. I won't mention anymore of the scenes that I liked so as not to spoil anything for those who haven't read it. Overall, I found "The West End Horror" to be a very decent Holmes pastiche and I would recommend reading it, but just don't expect it to be as good as "The Seven Percent Solution". Also, this book is not about Jack the Ripper. I've read summaries that say the book is about Jack the Ripper but it isn't.
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Title: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. (Norton Paperback) by Nicholas Meyer ISBN: 0393311198 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John H. Watson by Nicholas Meyer ISBN: 0393312410 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Exploits of Sherlock Holmes by John Dickson Carr, Adrian Conan Doyle ISBN: 0517203383 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 11 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Revenge of the Hound by Michael Hardwick ISBN: 0671038915 Publisher: I Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Richard Lancelyn Green, Arthur Conan Doyle ISBN: 0140079076 Publisher: Penguin USA (Mm) Pub. Date: March, 1986 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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