Tag: Sherlock Holmes

Case-Book

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Reason read: to complete the series started a long, long time ago in honor of Doyle’s birth month.

The best stories come to life when the personality of Sherlock Holmes gets to shine through his investigative brilliance. It is in Case-Book that readers are reminded that Sherlock is his most human self when he relaxes in a Turkish bath.

As an aside, Sherlock reminded me of Nero Wolfe in The League of Frightened Men when he refused to help Colonel Damery.

The stories:

  • Adventure of the Illustrious Client – Baron Gruner is known as the Austrian murderer who supposedly killed his wife. Will he kill his latest fiancé? Why is the woman dead set (pun intended) on marrying this man?
  • Adventure of the Blanched Soldier – crime is not always at the root of a case for Holmes. This time a man hides his pale face for a completely different reason.
  • Adventure of the Mazarin Stone – the theft of a missing crown jewel.
  • Adventure of the Three Gables – a tale of what one person will do to keep their reputation clean.
  • Adventure of the Sussex Vampire – a mother is accused of being a vampire.
  • Adventure of the Three Garridebs – a weird scam so that a villain could acquire a counterfeiter’s printing press.
  • The Problem of Thor Bridge – a woman is found dead. Could the murderer have been her husband’s younger and more beautiful mistress?
  • Adventure of the Creeping Man – what would make a respected professor act like a monkey?
  • Adventure of the Lion’s Mane – Did a man kill his friend over a woman?
  • Adventure of the Veiled Lodger – What happens when a murder plot goes horribly wrong.
  • Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place – how far would a man go to hide his sister’s demise?
  • Adventure of the Retired Colourman – A man experiences the ultimate betrayal…or did he?

BookLust Twist: this will be the last time that will I say this does not come from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123). The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is not listed.

His Last Bow

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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.

“The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge”

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. “The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge.” Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Doyle loves words. Case in point: John Scott Eccles, the man who comes to Sherlock for help describes his experience as incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer and bizarre. All that really happened was that he spent the night at some place called Wisteria Lodge as the guest of Aloysius Garcia, but upon waking found that everyone had disappeared, including the host. As he was sharing this incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer, bizarre news with Sherlock and Watson, the inspector from Scotland Yard arrives to say Aloysius was found murdered. Through a series of tips and clues, Sherlock is led to the home of Mr. Henderson. He is actually Don Juan Murillo. How he is connected to the disappearance of Aloysius Garcia, I am not sure. Of course, there is a mysterious woman who isn’t as she seems.

Story trivia: Holmes looks back at mysteries solved in other stories.

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Reason read: It’s Sherlock.

Here are the short stories that make up The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:

  • “Silver Blaze” – who killed a jockey and where is the famous horse, Silver Blaze?
  • “Yellow Face” – this was my favorite mystery of the book.
  • “Stock-broker’s Clerk” – What is a true connection and how can it be bought?
  • “The Gloria Scott” – a glimpse into Holmes’s past. We learn of a friendship that comes from a dog bite.
  • “Musgrave Ritual” – my favorite line came from this story, “Pistol practice should be an open air pasttime.” Amen to that.
  • “Reigate Puzzle” – holmes is supposed to be resting after an illness but cannot help getting involved with a murder mystery.
  • “Crooked Man”- it was at this point that I decided it would be exhausting to have a conversation with Shelock Holmes; to have all of his observations and elementary deductions punctuating his every sentence.
  • “Resident Patient” – Watson picks up on Sherlock’s method of deducation.
  • “Greek Interpreter” – it is revealed Sherlock Holmes has a brother, Mycroft. The two brothers share the same powers of deduction so a conversation with them would be twice as annoying.
  • “Naval Treaty” – we meet a college friend of Watson’s.
  • “Final Problem” – the story that makes everyone think Homes has died.

As an aside, what constitutes a fabulous forehead?

Author fact: Doyle studied medicine. I think that education helped his writing.

Book trivia: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is odd in the sense that it was published in 1893 with a ’94 date.

Nancy said: Memoirs of Sherlock Homes was so under the radar or Pearl since she only indexed The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123). Confessional: when I realized I would be reading more than one title within a single book, I started listing out the individual titles. For example, Remembrance of Things Passed has seven volumes (seven titles). I am listing each title separately because there is no way I can read Remembrance in its entirety in one month. So. Same with the Complete Sherlock Holmes. Pearl doesn’t mention each compilation of short stories or novel within but since that’s how I’m reading them, I decided to list them that way. My true confessional is that I have started to list out the short stories and this is where I have gotten myself confused. I haven’t been listing out the short stories in other collections, so why now?

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2003.

Reason read: Doyle died in July. Read in his memory.

If you were to read the Complete Sherlock Holmes in chronological order, you would not start with the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The short stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, twelve in all, start after Holmes and Watson have gone their separate ways and are no longer sharing rooms of a flat together. Watson is by this time married with a house of his own while Holmes is still on Baker Street. One constant that remains throughout all the stories is Holmes’s ability to confuse people with his keen sense of observation. “How could you know that?” is a constant refrain. Another constant is that all of the stories are told in first person from Watson’s point of view.

Short stories:

  • “Scandal in Bohemia” – a Duke and heir King is blackmailed by an actress. Sherlock, with the help of Holmes, attempts to end the threat but the woman outsmarts them.
  • “Red-Headed League” – what do you get when you mix a redhead, an Encyclopedia, a bank, and a scam? Answer: a Sherlock Holmes mystery, of course!
  • “A Case of Identity” – How far will a man go to keep his stepdaughter from marrying?
  • “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” – Did a man really murder his father or is there more going on?
  • “The Five Orange Pips” – a curse has come down through the generations, terrorizing a family.
  • “The Man with the Twisted Lip” – This was my favorite. A man goes missing and is believed to be dead while his wife has faith he is alive.
  • “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” – Who stole this precious jewel?
  • “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” – another crazy story about a father not wanting his daughters to marry because of losing the inheritance.
  • “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” – is it a spoiler to say this is one story where the criminals get away?
  • “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” – Just what the title says, a guy does the right thing.
  • “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” – family devotion illustrated with a coronet.
  • “The Adventure of the Copper Beaches” – a really interesting story about trying to thwart a wedding (another common theme for Sherlock).

Author fact: rumor has it, Sherlock Holmes is somewhat modeled after Dr. Joseph Bell, a professor of Dolye’s at Edinburgh University.

Book trivia: Despite publishing two novels previously, Doyle’s career didn’t take off until he started writing short stories. The twelve listed above were published together in 1892.

Nancy said: Pearl included the Complete Sherlock Holmes in a list of private-eye mysteries.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the really long chapter called “I love a Mystery” (p 117).

The Game

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King, Laurie R. The Game. New York: Bantam Books, 2001.

Reason read: to finish the series started in January in honor of Female Mystery Month.

In the last installment of the Mary Russell series, King included real life character, Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (who dies early in The Game). This time King takes a well-known character from a fictional story and gives him a larger than life persona. From Rudyard Kipling’s Kim Kimball O’Hara comes alive as a player in the Great Game of espionage in India as a spy for the Crown. After three years of being missing Holmes’s brother Mycroft announces it is up to Holmes and Russell to find him. What follows is a wild adventure through India. Holmes goes undercover as a magician while Mary bends the roles of gender…all for the sake of the Game.
One of the best elements of The Game is Mary’s connection to Holmes. Her keen sense of observation coupled with her intimate familiarity with his personality extends to his habits so that she is able to discern mood and energy levels. Never is this more apparent than in The Game.
Another added bonus of The Game is the education on India’s extensive caste system and colorful history.

Author fact: King has written a plethora of other books, including one titled, Beekeeping for Beginners. Too bad it isn’t on my Challenge list.

Book trivia: The Game is the last Mary Russell mystery I am reading. I move on to one Kate Martinelli book but not for a few years.

Nancy said: Pearl mentioned Mary and Sherlock being man and wife in The Game. In reality, they were married much earlier in the series.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 170).

The Painted Desert

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“…April is over. Will you tell me how long before I can be there?”
-The Painted Desert, 10,000 Maniacs

I will have that song playing in my head from now until June. Not only am I planning to be there, the trip cannot happen soon enough. But for the purposes of this post: April is over and here are the books accomplished:

Fiction:

  • The Warden by Anthony Trollope.
  • The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg (EB & print).
  • Summer at Fairacre by Miss Read (EB).
  • Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding.
  • All Souls by Javier Marias (EB & print).
  • All-of-a-Kind-Family by Sydney Taylor (AB and print).

Nonfiction:

  • Sixpence House by Paul Collins (EB & print).
  • Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs.

Series continuation:

  • Hunting Season by Nevada Barr (EB and print).
  • The Game by Laurie R. King (AB/AB/print).
  • Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith (EB & print)
  • Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (EB)

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • Red Earth: a Rwandan Story of Healing and Forgiveness by Denise Uwimana

For fun:

  • Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver – Yes! I finally finished it!

Appealing to April

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I have a ridiculous number of books planned for this month. I have no idea what I was thinking.

Fiction:

  • The Warden by Anthony Trollope – in honor of Trollope’s birth month being in April.
  • City and the House by Natalie Ginsberg – in honor of April being Letter Writing month.
  • All Souls by Javier Marias – in honor of Oxford Jazz Festival traditionally being in April.
  • All-of-a-Kind-Family by Sydney Taylor – in honor of April being Sibling month and in honor of Library Week.

Nonfiction:

  • The Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs – in honor of John Muir’s birth month (and the fact we are visiting Arizona soon).
  • Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins – in honor of Library Week.

Series continuations:

  • Hunting Season by Nevada Barr to finish the series read out of order.
  • The Game by Laurie R. King – to finish the series started in honor of Female Mystery month.
  • Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith – to finish the series started in honor of Smith’s birth month.
  • The Council of the Cursed by Peter Tremayne – to continue the series started in honor of Tremayne’s birth month.
  • Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov – to continue the series started in honor of Asimov’s birth month.

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • From Red Earth: a Rwandan Story of Healing and Forgiveness by Denise Uwiemana.

The Moor

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King, Laurie R. The Moor. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

Reason read: to continue the series started in January in honor of Female Mystery Month.

The plot of The Moor centers around a Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Hound of the Baskervilles. In the swampy, foggy hills of Dartmoor residents complain of seeing a ghostly coach and a phantom dog with glowing red eyes. King introduces real life reverend Sabine Baring-Gould as a long time friend of Holmes’s who is convinced there is trouble on the moor, especially when there is an unexplained death. As the community grows more frightened Holmes calls his wife Mary away from her studies at Oxford to help him solve the mystery. In this third book of the series Mary steals the show and runs the investigation.

I had forgotten that each story is supposed to be a manuscript recovered from a trunk that was dropped on the narrator’s doorstep.

Confessional: when King mentioned the old ballad “Widdecombe Fair” I was hoping it was one Natalie might have hummed at one time or another during one of her shows. It’s not.

Author fact: King has another series set in San Francisco.

Book trivia: The Moor takes place four years after the first story, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.

Nancy said: Pearl said in The Moor Mary became Holmes’s wife but in truth she married Sherlock at the end of The Monstrous Regiment of Women. When we catch up to the couple in The Moor they have been married for two and a half years already.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 170).

March to a Different Drummer

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I will make a return to racing in two weeks. My last public run was in July. I’m not ready. Simply not. March is also two Natalie Merchant concerts. A return to my favorite voice. Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais – in honor of March being a rainy month. Dumb, I know.
  • Topper by Thorne Smith – in honor of Smith’s birth month being in March.
  • Giant by Edna Ferber – in honor of Texas becoming a state in March.

Nonfiction

  • Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam – in honor of March being the month the U.S. finally pulled out of Vietnam.
  • Cherry: a Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard by Sara Wheeler in honor of March being the month Apsley ended his depot journey.

Series Continuation:

  • Gemini by Dorothy Dunnett – to finally finish the series started in August in honor of Dunnett’s birth month.
  • Blackout by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza – to finish the series started in February in honor of the Carnival festival in Brazil.
  • Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov – to continue the series started in honor of Asimov’s birth month.
  • The Moor by Laurie R. King – to continue the series started in January in honor of Mystery Month.

For fun:

  • Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver – still reading
  • Sharp by Michelle Dean – still reading
  • Calypso by David Sedaris – needed for the Portland Public Library reading challenge.
  • Living with the Little Devil Man by Lina Lisetta – written by a faculty member.
  • Hidden Southwest edited by Ray Riegert – for my May trip.
  • 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz – for my May trip…and the 2020 Italy trip.

Following February

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What to say about this month? It was epic in a myriad of ways. First and foremost, I turned half a century old. I don’t mind the number; I am not bothered by the age. Never the less, friends and family gathered for a party to remember. And. And! And, I re-upped my commitment to running. It’s been slow but I have to admit something here – my breathing has been effed up. I have a scheduled appointment for early March so…I continue to read.

Here are the books:

Fiction:

  • Take This Man by Frederick Busch. (EB & print)
  • Good Night Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning by Alice Walker. (EB)
  • Crossers by Philip Caputo. (EB and print)
  • Alone in the Crowd by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. (EB and print)

Nonfiction:

  • Tragic Honesty by Blake Bailey. (print only)
  • Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. (AB, EB and print)

Series Continuations:

  • A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King. (EB and print)
  • Caprice and Rondo by Dorothy Dunnett. (print)
  • Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov. (EB)
  • A Fine and Bitter Snow by Dana Stabenow. (EB and print)

Early Review for LibraryThing:

  • How to be a Patient by Sana Goldberg.
  • Corregidora by Gayl Jones (reread).

For fun:

  • Exploring the Southwest by Tammy Gagne.
  • Calypso by David Sedaris (started).
  • Sharp by Michelle Dean (continuing)
  • Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (continuing)

Beekeeper’s Apprentice

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King, Laurie R. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: On the Segregation of the Queen. Read by Jenny Sterlin. Recorded Books, 1995.
King, Laurie R. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: On the Segregation of the Queen. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Reason read: January is Female Mystery month. Take that anyway you want.

Such a clever plot. Take an established character like Sherlock Holmes and re-imagine him after retirement, living in the country and tending his beloved bees. Although he is only in his late 50s Holmes wants nothing more to do with solving crimes and revealing the truth behind mysteries…until he meets Mary Russell. She is ever bit the investigator he had been in his heyday and then some. He cannot help but be drawn to her keen sense of observation, her energized brain and her innate talent as an investigator.
Despite being nearly three times her age, it is interesting to watch Homes get closer to Mary emotionally and how she reacts to it. When there is physical contact between them Mary is clutched by sudden awareness of his physicality. There is a subtle shift to their relationship and what each wants from it.
The final mystery in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice threatens the lives of both Mary and Holmes. They are in so much danger people around them start paying the consequences. It takes everything in Sherlock and Russell’s combined powers of investigation to stay alive.

Quotes to quote: ” I refuse to accept gallant stupidity in place of rational necessity” (p 165) and “When in ignorance, consult a library” (p 301)..

Author fact: King is a native to San Francisco, California.

Book trivia: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is the first of a series of books about Sherlock and Russell.

Nancy said: Pearl says she loves King’s series involving Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the great chapter called “Ms Mystery” (p 169).