Pages

Monday 16 April 2012

The Detective and the Woman by Amy Thomas

Sherlock Holmes without Watson?
Review by The Mole

Holmes is believed dead after Reichenbach Falls but Mycroft knows where he is and alerts him to a plan that jeopardises the safety of Irene Adler. In this story Holmes works with Adler and they try to trust each other.

This story is interesting in a few ways: we meet Irene Adler as a 'friend' instead of adversary; half the story is told by Adler and the other half by an anonymous narrator; Watson is almost totally absent from the story and has not written the story up.

Using these devices we no longer need to be convinced that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have written it this way, and frankly I am sure he wouldn't. But this technique means the author can use Holmes as a character without having to emulate Watson's style of writing - something that is not as simple as it seems.

The plot against Adler though seems very convoluted for what they were trying to achieve yet the story is told well. And although I enjoyed it I was disappointed with the ending which felt a lot more like a romantic novel than a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

Publisher - MX Publishing
Genre - Adult Crime Fiction

Buy The Detective and The Woman: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes from Amazon

No comments:

Post a Comment