A Most Diabolical Plot: Six Compelling Sherlock Holmes Cases
“The notebooks of John H. Watson, MD” yielded for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle many splendid tales of the world’s most famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes. Those fictional tomes continue to ignite the imaginations of today’s would-be Doyles. Tim Symonds has written five full-length Holmes novels and now turns his pen to six 20-to-30-page short stories. The plot devices for the cases range from the mundane (bees, knitting, what only a blind person can do, and the resolution of grass in two separate photographs) to the more spectacular (developing a mechanical horse during World War I and foiling the assassination of Queen Victoria during her Diamond Jubilee parade). Each showcases Holmes’s trademark problem-solving skills and emphasizes the help that Watson provides along the way.
While all six stories held my interest, to call any of them “compelling,” as does the subtitle of this volume, is a stretch. Even though Symonds feels MX is “the world’s largest publisher of Holmes and Watson adventures,” their quality leaves much to be desired—the subtitle in the frontispiece differs from that of the book’s cover. Further, the six stories aren’t presented chronologically but jump from the 20th century back to the 19th for no reason I can fathom. Buy this slim volume only if you need a complete collection of modern-day Sherlockiana.
