Glad I did! For the most part,they hold up well and are all compelling and thrilling and enjoyable. Even when they're bad.
Also- the stories' mysteries are random.2 There's no way you can figure things out on your own. There's just not enough information provided. We mostly only learn the details we need in order to put the pieces together as Holmes explains them...after stating his deduction. So it's mostly a passive reading experience- you don't get to engage with the story, you just watch it go.
Which is fair enough, as the stories mostly go great.
"A Study in Scarlet"
Doyle hits the ground running. Holmes arrives fully formed and it's a joy to watch him work. The mystery is intriguing, the twists are twisty, the banter is snappy,3 and then the story stops abruptly halfway through and the book becomes a delusional, frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Mormon rant with no Sherlock Holmes in sight.
Yup. The murder suspect is caught with no warning and then HALF THE BOOK is a narrative explaining the entire history of the two murder victims and the murderer. Basically- a guy's lover is forced into a polygamous marriage in Utah after her father is threatened and then killed by Brigham Young and those evil Mormons. So the guy tracks down and kills the two nefarious Mormons that took his lover away and killed her father.
This book states that any Mormon in good standing in the 1850's was expected to be polygamous. Fact check: at the height of polygamy's practice among Mormons- the 1850's- about 5% of them did it. And the entire political/ social structure in Utah as depicted by Doyle is a paranoid fantasy, with armed Mormons blocking access to and from their cities, doing surveillance and reporting on each other to church leaders, and church leaders murdering or abducting any dissidents.
Doyle probably read some anti-Mormon pamphlet, thought "Seems legit," and gave it half the real estate in his first novel. The real danger of bigoted vitriol like this is not that people will believe it, but that they'll think "Well, this is just a story, of course it's not true...but stuff LIKE THAT probably happened." Wrong. Nothing remotely like anything in this story ever happened to anyone. Ever. It's nonsense. It's as accurate on Mormonism as "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is on Judaism.4
Fun book, otherwise.
"The Sign of Four"
This one introduces Holmes' catchphrase, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains- however improbable- is what's up." It also puts the fact that Holmes is a junkie front-and-center. The book's first paragraph is a detailed description of Holmes intravenously shooting up cocaine. The last paragraph of the book has Holmes gleefully reaching for his cocaine bottle for solace after Watson says he's leaving to get married.5
No anti-Mormon stuff here, though there is some racism and xenophobia. Non-Englishmen are dismissed as "savages" and even when one of them gets a chance to explain himself, it's still depicted as the mad work of a savage.
I didn't understand what was going on during a lot of their hunting for ships and treasures- the story drifts- but there's a lot of great lines and cool scenes throughout.
And mercifully, Doyle only kills one chapter with the endless explanation/ justification story from the murderer, instead of wasting half the book on it the way he did in his first book.
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"
This first short story collection is surprisingly bland. The stories all blend together with repetitious plots and abrupt, out-of-left-field resolutions.
It does have "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," one of the most renowned Holmes stories about [SPOILER!] a killer snake. That one's pretty solid.
Irene Adler, Holmes' prominent love interest in a lot of film/TV adaptations is mentioned here, but not given much to do. Which is a missed opportunity to break up the stories' monotony. She was probably expanded on in other media adaptations because people realized Holmes works better when challenged by a strong woman.
"The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes"
Things pick up here.
The stories are still kinda repetitive, but they're much more well-written and their content is more interesting. It starts with a death-by-horse and a story about an illegitimate interracial love child. The latter could have been sensationalized and presented in a racist way, but it's actually handled with care and affection. Which is progressive and impressive for a mainstream late-19th century yarn.
"The game is..." is stated at one point, but the sentence isn't finished. It's like we're being teased with a catch phrase that won't be unleashed until later books.
We meet Holmes' brother, Mycroft, here and he's cool. Holmes' nemesis, Moriarty, gets introduced and instantly dispatched in the last story. He's presented as this amazing, super-awesome, mega bad guy who controls everything...but we're not really seeing much of that in action. It's a total tell-not-show situation where we're just told how super-evil Moriarty is without any examples of his deeds. That's a bit disappointing.
I didn't know Sherlock was killed at the end of this book. That's another SPOILER, btw. This is barely the mid-point in the Holmes canon and Doyle threw him off the cliff. No way the audience was gonna let Holmes die like that, so they must've hounded Doyle on Twitter until he brought Holmes back.
"The Hound of the Baskervilles"
This is a prequel to the other books, so it technically doesn't reverse Holmes' death. Though it is kind of odd that Doyle never once mentions that it's a prequel. It's just like "Holmes died in the last story. Uh...Here's another one."
This one's pretty good, though. Solid mystery with layers of intrigue and a Scooby Doo-esque ending. Also it's nice to take a leisurely ride with one single case instead of the onslaught of formulaic cases in the short story collections.
Watson makes a trenchant observation in here that sums up my main beef with all the Holmes yarns:
"One of Sherlock Holmes's defects- if, indeed, one may call it a defect-6 was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfillment."
Dead on. We're left in the dark as an audience about way too many details and then we're hit with an avalanche of revelation as Holmes unveils the solution.
Substance abuse note- Holmes smokes in one scene, but doesn't do any heroin or cocaine. So that's progress.
"The Return of Sherlock Holmes"
Here, Holmes proves he was about as dead as a Marvel Comics superhero.7
Turns out Holmes didn't even fall at the Falls. He used "baritsu"- the Japanese system of wrestling- and escaped Moriarty before Moriarty fell, alone, to his death.
Eh. I could have bought that Holmes maybe survived the fall and went into hiding to recover and reemerge stronger than ever,8 but retconning it so that Holmes didn't even fall is lame.
In fun news, Holmes finally says "The game is afoot" in here. He goes to a Red Bull pub where I presume they only sell super-caffeinated beverages. And the last story mentions that Holmes retired to do bee farming. As you see, this article is not over yet, so you can guess how that whole retirement thing went for Mr. Holmes.
"The Valley of Fear"
For whatever reason, this is another prequel novel. Doyle already resurrected Holmes, so it's odd that he chose to write a pre-"death" mystery. I guess because he wanted Moriarty to play a part and you can't do that with Moriarty dead.
But Moriarty is- AGAIN- an off-stage presence. We still get nothing but hints of his power and menace. He's allegedly behind plots in the book, but it doesn't matter because there's no showdown and we never get Moriarty's side of the story. It's like another Marvel phenomenon- in their movies, they seemed almost afraid of using a villain other than Loki.9 Doyle's re-use of "Moriarty's criminal genius is behind it!" feels like he was just too lazy to introduce a new villain.
Story's okay. The first half, at least. This has the bit where they try to decipher a code and figure out what book it's in and that's all fun. Like "Study in Scarlet," it cuts off halfway through and gives us a lengthy backstory for the mystery. But it's not a very interesting backstory. Inflammatory and deluded as "Scarlet" was, its backstory was compelling. Here- it feels like it stopped a fun mystery cold in order to make room for a mediocre mining town potboiler.
"His Last Bow"
I'm still reading these at this point because I'm almost done. It's becoming a chore. Another set of by-the-numbers mysteries.
"The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes"
So this is his real last bow.10 Holmes' charms wore off a couple books ago. It feels like Sir Doyle was phoning it in here to appease fans. Doyle's introduction to the book is loaded with barely-concealed venom against an audience that kept demanding more Holmes yarns.
Some cool stuff, though. There's a vampire story and one story told from Holmes' perspective. And some cool quotes:
"I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix."
"Come at once if convenient - if inconvenient come all the same."
"Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts?"
And that's all.
* * *
1. Which is actually doable, since all of the Holmes stories together are about the length of an average epic fantasy novel.2. Having a sloppy mystery is a notable weakness for a mystery story.
3. Holmes name-checks and explains why he's more awesome than every literary detective that preceded him. His diss on Edgar Allen Poe's detective fiction is a particularly nice zinger.
4. Also Wikipedia says it got banned from a school in the town where I currently live. Gross as the book is, I'd never try to stop someone from reading it. The best way to counter lies is more truth, not repressing the lies.
5. Holmes gives Dr. Rockso a run for his money in this tale.
6. One may.
7. Writers are paid to write, so they have to be pragmatic. If there's money to be made with a character, he/she will never be left for dead.
8. Doyle was leaving Holmes awfully open to the possibility of a resurrection by not mentioning any body being found, so hey.
9. Loki was the bad guy three times in a row and, in fairness, no villain has been as cool. So- stick with what works?
10. That would have been a better title for this one- "His FOR REAL THIS TIME Last Bow. Really. We Mean It."
-Phony McFakename
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