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Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Devil's Grail: A Narrative Believed to Be from the Pen of John H. Watson, MD by Barrie Roberts ISBN: 0-7490-0470-3 Publisher: Allison & Busby Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Tolerable But Not Exceptional
Comment: As Holmes pastiches go, this particular book isn't too bad. But neither is it very gripping. It's just sort of...there. Out of the dozen or so installments that I've read in the continuing non-Doyle adventures of the Great Detective, this little outing does little to distinguish itself.
We get no real insight into the Holmesian character, and certainly none into the often-overlooked Watson. (In truth, a lot of the recent pastiches use this duo only as an excuse to introduce other historical or fictional characters that the author is far more interested in investigating.) The antagonists are singularly bland, and the supporting cast is not altogether memorable.
The key cryptographic puzzle is rather intricate, though, so much so that several diagrams are required in order for the reader to make any sense of the whole thing. It's fairly clever.
However, the denouement is just ludicrous and the fulfillment of Holmes' plan requires that everyone involved should unwittingly act out their part by undertaking the most irrational actions. The whole climax feels forced.
My biggest complaint? The villains are threatening Holmes' client from the moment he sets foot in England and wish to prevent him from going to a certain place, when, in fact, they have no evidence that he ever intends to go there, nor that anything he might do would in the slightest way be disadvantageous to them. In fact, as it all turns out, the bad guys have no way of solving a riddle without his assistance in the first place, so they would've been better advised to have duped him into acting on their behalf. But perhaps I quibble.
In any case, it's a quick read for those who absolutely must have a Holmes fix, and the notes at the end of the book are not without interest.
Rating: 2
Summary: In a word, boring!
Comment: Here's yet another Sherlockian pastiche off the presses. I buy 'em all, hoping to come across another Sam Siciliano's Angel of the Opera or another Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Or at least a Jan Walker's Singular Case of the Duplicate Holmes, but my advice for you who've arrived to this page and are considering buying this book is "Keep on going. Nothing to see here."
Rating: 4
Summary: Fine up to a point...
Comment: Right up until the end, this is one of the best Holmes pastiches I have read in years. Holmes and Watson are depicted pretty much bang on, there is plenty of authentic local 1895 color in various British Isle locales, and there are some interesting characters for Holmes and Watson to interact with, plus an ancient, secret message for Holmes to decode.
But at the end, things fall apart. First, Holmes' preposterous plan for dealing with the three villains would, in real life, have led to a mass grave covering the bodies of Holmes, Watson, their client, his son, and a number of Baker Street Irregulars! Second, the nature of the "Devil's Grail" itself is a huge, huge letdown. But right up to these final pages, things move along well, and the entertainment value of the proceedings is unquestionable.
I do have one other reservation about the novel, but it is a reservation I have about fully half of the hundred or so novel-length Holmes pastiches I have read over the years. Namely, the villains act exactly contrary to their revealed motivations. They want to find the secret hidden in the ruins of Glastonbury, but they spend half the novel preventing the one man who can find the secret for them from going there! All they have to do is wait until Col. Harden takes his photos, then steal them. But instead they are involved in a hundred pages of nonsensical foolishness to PREVENT Harden from getting the info they need. Then, with Holmes on the case, all they need to do is to wait until Holmes finds the Grail and take it, but insead they interfere constantly for another 70 pages. Of course, the answer to the paradox is that the author could not fill his pages with action unless the villains behaved this way! But I wish more authors would try to find another way to keep the reader's attention besides having the villains act like the Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons throughout the book.
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Title: The Singular Adventures of Mr. Sherlock Holmes by Alan Stockwell ISBN: 1843750104 Publisher: UPSO Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Sherlock Holmes: A Duel With the Devil by Roger Jaynes ISBN: 0947533753 Publisher: Breese Books Ltd Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Shadows Over Baker Street by MICHAEL REAVES, JOHN PELAN ISBN: 0345455282 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara by Alan Vanneman ISBN: 078671297X Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: 09 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Ted Riccardi ISBN: 1400060656 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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