His Last Bow

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: “His Last Bow.” Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Sherlock Holmes is at it again, solving mysteries for his fellow Londoners. In the “Adventure of the Cardboard Box”, Holmes was so embarrassed to have solved it so easily that he did not want to take credit for it. As usual, Holmes has his ways of learning things about people by making them chatter. The more they talk, the more they reveal. He also can discern important facts by the tiniest of details like cigarette butts and handwriting samples.

Short stories:

• The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge – solving the murder of a man named Garcia.
• The Adventure of the Cardboard Box – a box sent to a spinster creates an uproar.
• The Adventure of the Red Circle – a case of hidden identity and self defense.
• The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans – the theft of submarine plans.
• The Adventure of the Dying Detective – someone is trying to kill Sherlock!
• the Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax – a woman is missing. Quote I liked from this story, “When you follow two separate chains of thought, you will find some point of intersection which should approximate to the truth” (p 950).
• The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot
• His Last Bow: the war service of Sherlock Holmes

Lines I liked, “Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery…” (p 901).Book trivia: I love it when Watson remembers previous cases and references them in new mysteries. He compared the Adventure of the Cardboard Box to a Study in Scarlet and the Sign of Four.