Mystery Book Review

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

I didn't find most of these stories to be very good. In most of them, Sherlock Holmes doesn't deduce things from clues so much as he just follows obvious leads and finally confronts the guilty. Exceptions are "Silver Blaze" (an excellent story) and "The Naval Treaty."

• Silver Blaze: A champion horse goes missing, his trainer murdered. Holmes deduces that the horse killed the trainer, and a neighbor stole the runaway horse.
• The Yellow Face: A mysterious yellow face in a neighboring cottage turns out to be a mask to conceal a man's daughter-in-law--his wife was afraid he wouldn't accept a black child.
• The Stock-Broker's Clerk: An unemployed clerk accepts a position at Mawson, but then a stranger offers him a much greater salary to work a strange job at a startup. Holmes deduces the whole thing is a ruse--the stranger has impersonated the clerk and taken his job at Mawson, in order to steal large sums of money.
• The "Gloria Scott": A country man dies of fright. Holmes figures out he was a criminal sentences to transportation, but after a mutiny and a shipwreck, he makes a new identity and goes back to England.
• The Musgrave Ritual: A strange family tradition is a clue to royal treasure.
• The Reigate Puzzle: A coachman is murdered, and Sherlock Holmes determines that his own master killed him.
• The Crooked Man: Colonel James Barclay is found dead after a quarrel with his wife, but in a room locked from the inside, with no key to be found anywhere.
• The Resident Patient: Doctor Percy Trevelyan asks Holmes to investigate his investor and resident patient, a Mr. Blessington.
• The Greek Interpreter: Sherlock's brother Mycroft brings him a mystery: Mycroft's neighbor Mr. Melas--an interpreter--was hired and taken to help interrogate a Greek who was clearly being held against his will.
• The Naval Treaty: A sensitive treaty document goes missing.
• The Final Problem: Arthur Conan Doyle must be tired of Sherlock Holmes, because this story is nothing but an excuse to kill him off.

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain and can be found at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/834/834-h/834-h.htm

---

Archive | Search