Sam Vaseghi

A collection of a dozen original, Conan Doyle short stories - very different in style and tone to modern interpretations of the world's most famous detective. A great way to introduce yourself to Sherlock's original incarnation, but be ready for old-fashioned writing and story construction.

The tales in this anthology were originally serialised 125 years ago, but it's remarkable how many of the plots and themes are still popular in current crime fiction today. A couple of these stories have been adapted / incorporated into the current 'Sherlock' TV series (look out for orange pips and Irene Adler).

There's a common belief that Conan Doyle wrote his stories so that a clever reader could follow the clues and solve the mysteries - and having read all of the originals, I can't say that I managed it too often! The conclusions often seem like a leap in the dark from pretty thin evidence, and the author was fond of pulling unknown rabbits out of hats.

However, after reading a couple of these stories you tend to fall into the pattern of Holmes' investigations and the routines become very comfortably familiar quite fast. None of the episodes is particularly long so they're easy to enjoy in a single sitting, once you've got used to the archaic style.

Worth trying, if only to understand where so much of modern crime writing started.
8/10… (plus d'informations)