The Torso at Highgate Cemetery and Other Sherlock Holmes Stories
With the expiry of his copyright, Conan Doyle’s style, plots and characters may be plundered by anyone. My hackles twitched slightly when I discovered that Tim Symonds had authored five previous collections of Sherlock Holmes stories and that I had undertaken to review his latest. However, as I turned Mr Symonds’ 209 pages, my anxiety ceased and was replaced by an increasing sense of approval and enjoyment. The use of dear Watson as narrator is an inspired notion.
While some of the stories are less scintillating than others, they are properly told here: fanciful, complex, and, like “The Ambassador’s Skating Competition” for an example, full of opium-induced detail. Tim Symonds has added to the enjoyment of the Sherlock-Watson combination by focussing on the relationship between the two of them and developing the humour of it.
The practicalities of Watson and Sherlock’s lives have altered since the Baker Street days. Now that Holmes, retired and engrossed in his bee-keeping, is based in Sussex, a lot of railway journeys are involved, and Watson, that dear chap, is frequently tired and sometimes baffled by all the travelling. Watson’s diligent “notes” will add considerably to a reader’s enjoyment of this charming publication.
