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Summary
Summary
When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he expects good sherry and stimulating conversation. He receives a bonus: the world's leading expert on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle announces that he's found the author's fabled "missing diary." But when the man is found murdered in his hotel room - it is Harold who must take up the search:both for the killer, and for the invaluable missing diary. With only his immense knowledge of the Doylean canon-and the help of a beautiful young journalist-Harold embarks on a dangerous translatlantic investigation, making deductions worthy of his literary idol. At the same time, author Graham Moore tells the story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself, a story which his remained hidden in Conan Doyle's missing diary for a hundred years. In an attempt to prove himself the better of his most famous character, Conan Doyle hunts a serial killer through the streets of 1890's London. But what he finds is that in a world of real crime, and real evil, the world does not need Arthur Conan Doyle - the world needs Sherlock Holmes.
Author Notes
Graham Moore is a 28-year-old graduate of Columbia University, where he received his degree in Religious History. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Moore's debut cleverly sets an accidental investigator on the track of an old document within the world of Sherlock Holmes buffs, though the results may please those with only a superficial knowledge of the great detective. In January 2010, Harold White, "a freelance literary researcher" who helps defend Hollywood studios against claims of copyright infringement, is inducted into the pre-eminent Sherlockian society, the Baker Street Irregulars, at their annual New York City dinner. During the festivities, scholar Alex Cale plans to present a long-lost diary penned by Arthur Conan Doyle that he's discovered, but someone strangles Cale before he can do so. Doyle's great-grandson hires White to solve the murder and trace the diary, which is missing from Cale's hotel room. Chapters alternate between White's amateur sleuthing in Europe and Doyle's own account of his search for a serial killer, aided by Dracula creator Bram Stoker. Admirers of similar efforts by Anthony Boucher, H. Paul Jeffers, and Arthur Lewis will find this falls short of their standard. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Another resurrection of Sherlockiana, the conceit here being the story of tracking down Arthur Conan Doyle's missing journal from 1900and solving a murder associated with the journal.Owing to a couple of scholarly articles on Sherlock Holmes, Harold White has just been inducted into the famous but secretive Sherlockian society; at 29 he's one of the youngest members ever invited to join. A game's afoot, however, for Alex Cale, perhaps the most prominent Sherlockian of all, has recently announced that he's found Conan Doyle's famous missing journal. His plan is to reveal the contents at the annual meeting of the Sherlockians at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, but Cale is found murdered, with the word "Elementary" written on the wall near his body. White decides to solve both the case of the missing journal and Cale's murder. In his investigation he's abetted by Sebastian Conan Doyle, the great-grandson of the author himself (who feels he's the rightful owner of the journal), and Sarah, a reporter bent on following White because she's sure he has the best chance of finding the journal and solving the mystery of Cale's death. Throughout the narrative White's mantra is "What would Sherlock Holmes do?" and his answers to this question lead him from New York to London to Cambridge and finally to the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the site of Holmes's putative death. Moore cleverly alternates his chapters between White's story in the present and Conan Doyle's activities in the fall of 1900, so the reader can better understand the reasons why Conan Doyleor more likely his friend Bram Stokerwould want to suppress the journal. Along the way, Stoker winds up playing Watson to Conan Doyle, much as Sarah becomes a Watson figure to White.While occasionally heavy-handed and coincidental, Moore's fiction provides a shrewd take on the noted author and his legendary scion.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The problem with Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories is that there aren't enough of them. Fans try to fill the gap with spin-offs, some of which work better than others. This engaging riff on the familiar themes by first-novelist Moore is one of the best. His book alternates two stories and two centuries. The modern hero is twentysomething Harold White mild, bookish, and smart. He's just been initiated into the prestigious Baker Street Irregulars when a premier Holmes expert announces that he has found Conan Doyle's long-lost 1900 diary. Then the expert is murdered. Maybe. The game is afoot, and so's Harold. The hero of the alternate chapters is Conan Doyle himself, gleeful after sending that hawkshaw Holmes to his death at Reichenbach Falls and ready to write real literature. But murders intervene, and he and his friend Bram Stoker must investigate. All these gumshoes, past and present, use Holmes' methods. Moore spins his tale in prose that shifts easily from exposition to pathos to sly comedy. It's based on fact: in 2004, a premier Sherlockian was found dead after claiming he'd discovered Conan Doyle's lost papers. Mystery fans should love the mix of historical fiction and contemporary puzzle-solving. And Sherlockians? Try keeping them away.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Any fanatical admirer of Sherlock Holmes knows how he spent the Great Hiatus, those dark years between his dramatic tumble over the Reichenbach Falls in "The Final Problem" and his sensational re-emergence in "The Empty House." (Unbeknownst even to Watson, Holmes faked his own death and had been traveling incognito in Persia, Egypt, Tibet and other exotic locales.) But aside from writing "The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard" and several other works, touring in Egypt, lecturing in America, serving as a war correspondent in Sudan, supervising a hospital in Cape Town during the Boer War and standing for Parliament, what was Arthur Conan Doyle doing before he brought his great detective back from the grave? Graham Moore takes a brave swing at that pitch in his first novel, THE SHERLOCKIAN (Twelve, $24.99), by juxtaposing two separate mysteries set a century apart and featuring distinctly different sleuths. It's an ambitious approach based on sound scholarship, but the fussy and schematic split-focus narrative only makes us long for the cool, clean lucidity of Conan Doyle's elegant style. The contemporary side of Moore's story begins with a youthful swagger as 29-year-old Harold White is inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars, "the world's pre-eminent organization devoted to the study of Sherlock Holmes," at a banquet at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Emboldened by the honor, the young scholar assumes the role of amateur sleuth when an elder statesman of the group is murdered before he can unveil his astonishing discovery of the long-lost volume of Conan Doyle's diary, "the holy grail of Sherlockian studies." But there's more romance than logic to the adventures Harold and a perky girl reporter have in pursuit of the missing volume, and the simplistic tone of the storytelling reduces even their boldest exploits to the level of young adult fiction. Moore has far more success with his parallel plot, which casts Conan Doyle, creator of the notoriously misogynistic Holmes, as a champion of women, his eyes opened to Victorian society's monumental injustices as he investigates the serial murders of radical suffragists. Although routinely resolved, the mystery is gripping, and Moore has a feel for the transitional nature of Conan Doyle's era. The heck with Harold's derring-do. Better to stand on Westminster Bridge with Conan Doyle, "struck by the brightness of the street lamps running across like a formation of stars" and burning away the romantic mist of the gaslight era in the "cleansing glare" of the new century. There's a train you want to catch in Sheldon Russell's terrific historical crime novel, THE INSANE TRAIN (Minotaur, $25.99). Powered by an ancient steam engine and traveling over derelict tracks, this old rust-bucket is transporting 50 inmates, many of them criminally insane and violent, from a mental asylum in California, burned down in an arson fire, to an abandoned military fort in Oklahoma. Making the journey even more perilous, there's a killer on board and the only guards are a few hobos, down-and-out veterans of World War II. But it's all in a day's work for Hook Runyon, a "tough but fair" railroad security agent (better known as a "yard dog") who lives in a caboose, collects books and is "well schooled in the depravity of man." One-armed (and aptly named) Hook sets the rugged-but-sensitive tone of this outstanding series, which delivers thrilling action, great scenery and a full cast of complex characters searching for peace in a troubled postwar environment. Not to mention the chance to hop a ride on the Chief, the legendary diesel train whose "red and yellow war bonnet" shines in the sun as she sweeps into the station. "Darkness is drawn to darkness." Grant Jerkins issues that fair warning at the outset of A VERY SIMPLE CRIME (Berkley Prime Crime, paper, $14). Despite this heads-up, the degree of wickedness in his stylish legal thriller still delivers a chill. There's not a soul you can trust in the story, which opens with Adam Lee on trial for the murder of his wife. But if this cold-blooded man did not, in fact, kill his mentally unstable wife, who did? Their developmentally backward and murderously violent son? Adam's brother, the utterly unscrupulous lawyer handling his case? Adam's mistress might come to his defense, but she's disappeared - and who would believe her, anyway? That's precisely the challenge Jerkins throws out in this well-fashioned but extremely nasty study in abnormal psychology, which dares us to solve a mystery in which none of the normal character cues can be taken at face value. It would take a mighty force to shake the sense of complacency that prevails in the middle-class San Diego suburb where Debra Ginsberg has set THE NEIGHBORS ARE WATCHING (Crown, $23.99). While the raging wildfires that force an evacuation of the neighborhood certainly qualify as one of those unnerving events, the folks who live in Fuller Court are more profoundly rattled when Joe Montana's pregnant teenage daughter, Diana Jones, moves in with Joe and his wife, Allison. Never having been told that Joe even had a daughter, Allison is the first to fall apart, but in a very short time just about everyone in the vicinity is sunk in domestic desperation. Ginsberg never really pulls a plot together from her keen and ruthless observations of human foibles, leaving Diana so sketchily drawn she's little more than a metaphor. Honestly, the fire was symbol enough. Has a murdered Sherlock Holmes scholar discovered the long-lost volume of Conan Doyle's diary?
Library Journal Review
This debut literary thriller, which revolves around a central mystery in Arthur Conan Doyle's life (why did he kill off Sherlock Holmes and then revive him?), weaves together two very different perspectives and time periods. At the annual Baker Street Irregular convention in 2010, newly minted "Irregular" Harold immediately begins investigating the murder of Alex Cale, a top Sherlock Holmes scholar who had bragged about finding the famously missing volume of Conan Doyle's diary. But when Cale is found dead in his hotel room, the diary is nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, back in 1900, Conan Doyle, desperately sick of his famous character, decides he must channel his own creation to find the person who sent him a letter bomb. Teaming up with his friend Bram Stoker, the author finds the situation is much more complicated, involving suffragettes, cryptic tattoos, and murder. Verdict The constant switching of narrators can be jarring, but Moore does an excellent job of making his characters and settings feel real, using his thorough knowledge of the Holmes stories to good effect. Given the enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes, this title is an excellent choice for public libraries and historical mystery fans who enjoy Matthew Pearl's thrillers. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 7/10.]-Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib., CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.