Dr Watson

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Short Stories Challenge 2018 – The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes.

Published September 2, 2018 by bibliobeth

What’s The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches all about?:

The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches follows a young woman who seeks Holmes’ advice and assistance when she is asked to take the position of a governess under peculiar circumstances.

What did I think?:

I feel like I haven’t read a Sherlock Holmes short story in such a long time! This is partially down to how long it takes for this particular collection to roll round in my Short Stories Challenge and secondly, I’ve been a bit lackadaisical about my challenge recently, sometimes not being in the mood to read one short story per week and other times letting my backlog of reviews take priority. However, I hadn’t realised it was the final story in the collection and was delighted to discover that Conan Doyle concludes this series of adventures with Holmes and Watson on a high. The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches is coincidentally set in Hampshire where I spent a large portion of my early adulthood and where my parents still live now so I was charmed to read about an area that holds a very special place in my heart.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, channelling his very own inner Holmes perhaps?

The final story in this collection begins with a classic Holmes and Watson conversation where Holmes parades his ego, chastises Watson slightly for his “literary shortcomings,” when writing about all their previous cases and Watson becomes rather cross but only internally as he’s more than familiar with the way Holmes’ mind works and his rather brusque way of speaking and realises he means no personal slight by it. Soon enough, a young woman enters their rooms on Baker Street and begs their assistance with a very strange issue that at first, seems quite trivial but as the story continues, becomes more and more mysterious. She has been asked to take the position of governess in a country house close to Winchester to assume charge of one small boy and some other, more curious duties. This includes wearing a particular electric-blue dress, sitting in a specific spot and cutting her long, chestnut hair short.

She is understandably flabbergasted by these requests and is willing to do everything but cut her hair until her employer, Mr Rucastle offers her more money and practically destitute, she agrees to accept the job. It’s only as she begins to bow to the peculiar little whims of Rucastle and his wife that she realises something strange and rather uncomfortable is going on here and it’s up to Holmes and Watson to crack the case.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in the British TV series.

Conan Doyle certainly knew what he was doing when he was writing Sherlock Holmes in the late 1800’s. I do wonder if he would be shocked at how popular his work and his infamous detective still continue to be over one hundred years later and how many readers continue to be enraptured by the numerous mysteries and the infallible logic of Holmes himself. Let’s be honest, Holmes isn’t exactly the best at social interaction or niceties and even his most loyal friend Watson, gets frustrated with the way he goes about things, evident in The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches from the very beginning. Somehow, despite (or maybe because of) his eccentricities, readers like myself keep flocking back, undeniably curious to follow the deductions of a completely extraordinary mind.

Saying that, I did feel this specific short story didn’t have as much in the way of Holmes’ celebrated logic as other stories in the collection and for me, it was far more obvious what was going on in the Rucastle abode. Of course, this didn’t mean that I enjoyed it less and I certainly didn’t manage to piece together every single bit of the puzzle but it did seem less vague and easier to solve than other mysteries that I remember from this collection generally speaking.

If I’m thinking about the short story collection as a whole, I wouldn’t hesitate to whole-heartedly give it a big “thumbs up.” Yes, there are stories in there that are stronger than others but I believe that’s the case with most short story collections by one author that I come across. As an example of Conan Doyle’s genius, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece and is the perfect introduction to Holmes if you’ve never read him before or provides a nostalgic re-read for a die hard fan.

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

four-stars_0

NEXT SHORT STORY: My Mother’s Wedding by Tessa Hadley from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre edited by Tracy Chevalier.

Short Stories Challenge 2017 – The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Published December 8, 2017 by bibliobeth

What’s The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet all about?:

The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet follows a man who comes to Holmes and Watson for help when a precious beryl coronet he is tasked with looking after is damaged and some of the jewels are stolen.

What did I think?:

As I’ve made my way through the short stories in The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has regularly managed to stump me over what exactly is going on in his mysteries. So I was quite delighted (but at the same time strangely disappointed) when I could instantly identify our perpetrator in The Adventure Of The Beryl Coronet. Mind you, he still managed to stun me with the more intricate details of the crime i.e. the reasons behind it and for that reason, it was again a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience. I don’t think anyone has managed to write a detective as intriguing and as famous as Mr Holmes and I’m sure his stories will continue to entertain for many years to come.

This story follows a banker called Alexander Holder who is given an incredibly valuable and very well known beryl coronet to hold as security when he gives a client a loan of £50,000. Not trusting the safe at his office he keeps the item at home, believing his family and staff trustworthy despite the current disappointment he has in the character of his son, Arthur. Of course, you might have seen it coming, the coronet is damaged one night and some of the jewels are nowhere to be found. Even worse, when Alexander hears the disruption at night, he comes to the room where the coronet is stored to find it in the hands of his son, Arthur who he presumes to have been involved in the crime and calls for him to be arrested. He is now begging Holmes and Watson to discover what really happened that night so he can come to terms with his son being guilty or innocent.

This is a great little mystery to get your teeth into and although I had guessed what had happened and who was responsible, I loved all the minute details that went into how Holmes deduced exactly what had occurred. There’s not that much interaction between Holmes and Watson in this story sadly but I still enjoyed him as a background presence and the narrator of our tale. Holmes is his usual genius self divulging to the reader all the random, tiny little things that you might never pick up on but turn out to be a crucial piece of evidence in solving the mystery – ah, imagine if our police detectives today had his skills?! The next story in this collection is actually the last one I believe and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed discovering Sherlock Holmes for the very first time.

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

3-5-stars

NEXT SHORT STORY: Freaks: A Rizzoli & Isles Short Story by Tess Gerritsen (stand-alone).

Short Stories Challenge 2017 – The Adventure Of The Noble Bachelor by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes.

Published August 12, 2017 by bibliobeth

What’s The Adventure Of The Noble Bachelor all about?:

The Noble Bachelor sees Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson looking into the mysterious disappearance of a wife shortly after she was married.

What did I think?:

Sherlock Holmes is always a joy and I always look forward to the stories coming up in this collection as I read it for the very first time. There haven’t been very many that I’ve disliked which is a relief after expecting such great things from the lauded Arthur Conan Doyle and his most beloved and famous British detective. The Adventure Of The Noble Bachelor was another fantastic example of a convoluted mystery with a satisfying conclusion, obviously herded along by the amazing powers of deduction possessed by Mr Sherlock Holmes!

The Noble Bachelor in our story is Lord Robert St. Simon, a wealthy man undergoing some financial difficulties but has been thrown a lifeline in the form of wife-to-be Hatty Doran, a very rich American heiress. That is, he was relieved to think his money worries were going to be over until Hatty does a disappearing act shortly after the wedding at the family house. St. Simon has no idea where she has gone and why and enlists the help of Holmes and Watson in order to solve the mystery and perhaps find out exactly what happened to his errant wife. As with all of the Sherlock mysteries, there is always something much deeper and more complex going on below the surface. So by picking up on the subtlest of clues, Holmes is able to solve the case within the same day and even though what he finds might not necessarily bring happiness to all partners concerned, at least they’ll all have a clearer idea of what their future may hold.

This story is one of the slightly shorter narratives in the collection but this did not affect my enjoyment of it in the slightest. In fact it was admirably and neatly wrapped up and I left it feeling quite content with my lot and once again, astounded with the sheer brilliance of the author’s imagination in devising all these different cases and the tiny little clues that lead to a big reveal or a conclusion. I don’t think it’s as difficult as some of the other mysteries to solve as a reader, I had guessed part of it before the great unveiling but there were still many things I hadn’t picked up on which I hugely enjoyed. Always a pleasure and never a chore – I’m loving my experience of reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories and will feel quite bereft when I’ve finished everything there is to read….until I read them all again of course!

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

3-5-stars

NEXT SHORT STORIES CHALLENGE: The Heart Goes Last: Positron, Episode Four by Margaret Atwood (stand-alone).

Short Stories Challenge 2017 – The Adventure Of The Engineer’s Thumb by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Published March 13, 2017 by bibliobeth

What’s The Adventure Of The Engineer’s Thumb all about?:

A young man comes to see Dr Watson in his surgery with a bloody cloth wrapped around his missing thumb. However, this was no accident. Why exactly would someone want to remove someone else’s thumb? It is for Holmes and Watson to find out.

What did I think?:

This is one of the very few mysterious cases that Dr Watson happens upon himself and brings to his partner, Sherlock Holmes, he of the incredible deducing capabilities and brilliant nose for figuring out clues. It is when Watson has left Baker Street, is married and has opened his own practice. One morning a young man comes to see him missing a thumb that he swears was taken “by murderous intent,” and has quite the story to tell Holmes and Watson as the good doctor rushes him to Baker Street.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, as usual for anyone who hasn’t read it yet but I’ll give you a quick overview. Our missing thumb man is Victor Hatherley, hydraulic engineer who set up his own business but work has been slow of late until a strange, sinister looking man by the name of Colonel Lysander Stark offers him twice what he has made in the past two years simply to look at a piece of machinery that he owns, fix it up and stay the night. For some strange reason, Victor must visit the property at midnight to see the equipment, must stay overnight as there is no way he could return home at that time of night and must keep everything about this job completely top secret before, during and after the work is completed. This is stressed to be of the utmost importance by the peculiar Colonel Stark.

Of course, in complex cases such as these brought to Watson and Holmes things are never what they seem and it turns out this piece of equipment has a use far beyond what Stark has told the engineer it is used for. When Victor discovers what its true purpose is, he becomes in very real danger of losing his life but manages to escape leaving just his thumb behind.

There are not so many breadcrumbs of clues in this adventure as compared to other Holmes and Watson stories I’ve read in this collection but in no way did this affect the excitement of the plot and brilliance of the writing. Colonel Stark made a wonderful villain of the piece and it all got terribly tense and frightening, especially close to the end. It’s also one of those stories where the criminals may not necessarily get their comeuppance which used to irk me slightly at the beginning of this collection but I don’t mind so much anymore as occasionally it’s quite interesting to end the story in this way with the “baddies still on the loose” so as to speak!

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

NEXT SHORT STORY: Erase Me: Positron, Episode Three – Margaret Atwood (stand-alone)

Short Stories Challenge – The Adventure Of The Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Published July 29, 2016 by bibliobeth

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What’s The Adventure Of The Speckled Band all about?:

Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr Watson come to the aid of another damsel in distress whose beloved sister has died in rather suspicious circumstances.

What did I think?:

I’m really enjoying making my way through the entire Sherlock Holmes collection of stories and this latest offering, The Adventure Of The Speckled Band just re-iterated to me what an absolute genius Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was as an author. The lady desperate for assistance is Helen Stoner, a member of the well-known Roylott family of Surrey who have a grand estate but have fallen on harder times due to a number of gamblers and wasters in the family that have frittered away most of the fortune. When Helen’s mother passes away she leaves a considerable sum to her husband (Helen’s stepfather) on the provision that part of it should be paid to Helen and her sister Julia when they married.

The stepfather, Dr Grimesby Roylott is bit of a strange character to be honest. He meets and marries the girls mother when in India but has amassed a bit of a reputation as someone with a violent temper, narrowly escaping a prison sentence for beating his butler to death. He takes the girls back to the ancestral home in Surrey where, for a while, things run fairly smoothly… well, apart from the pet cheetah and baboon that he insists should be brought over from India for his amusement which leads the girls to lock themselves in their rooms each night for fear of the wild creatures. Then Julia becomes engaged to be married, not long after which a terrible tragedy occurs.

Julia had confided in her sister that she was beginning to feel quite afraid at night – she kept hearing a low whistle, from which direction she was not sure. Their stepfather has invited a band of gypsies to camp on their estate and she isn’t sure if the sound is coming from there but their rooms are both secure and there is no way entry can be forced. So, one night Helen hears an awful scream and a metallic “clang” sound from her sisters room and when she runs to her aid, Julia is petrified, shouts something about a “speckled band,” and promptly collapses, never regaining consciousness. When Holmes probes a bit further, he is certain that no-one has been inside Julia’s room and there are no obvious signs of injury to the body so what exactly killed her? Worse still, Helen has now been moved to her sister’s room and has heard the same low whistle that Julia described in the days before her death.

This was one of the more sinister of the Holmes stories that I have experienced and as a result, I absolutely loved it. There are quite obvious clues as to the perpetrator of the crime and the reasons behind it but the beauty of this little mystery lies in just how Julia met her untimely death. My heart was in my mouth most of the time, especially as Holmes and Watson take their investigation to the estate and sit in the foreboding room themselves, getting all the answers to their questions and much more besides. And, as always with Arthur Conan Doyle, I couldn’t have seen this conclusion coming! What is the mysterious speckled band? Read it for yourself!

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

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NEXT SHORT STORY: Choke Collar: Positron, Episode Two by Margaret Atwood (stand-alone)

Short Stories Challenge – The Adventure Of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Published December 8, 2015 by bibliobeth

3590

What’s The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle all about?:

It is Christmas and the disappearance of a precious jewel, along with a rise in the popularity of geese (or one particular goose!) leads to a curious case for Holmes and Watson.

What did I think?:

I’m really enjoying the stories in this collection, especially trying to figure out what exactly is going on before Holmes and Watson (which I never manage to of course). I have found that each story has elicited a different response from me and I’ve actually learned a lot along the way which I had never realised about the classic detective and his trusty and often befuddled side-kick. For example, sometimes no actual crime has been committed and the story veers into the “cosy little mystery” genre with Holmes and Watson solving a puzzle rather than catching a bad guy. I mention this because The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle has within it another new realisation for me, that is – sometimes the perp may not always be brought to justice.

The story is set in the festive season quite appropriately for when I am writing this review and, as often happens, Watson comes across Holmes in his infamous rooms in Baker Street in quiet reflection mode. Holmes has been brought a battered old hat earlier that day by Commissionaire Peterson who tells a rather strange story. The hat and a goose had been dropped by a man in a brawl with some rather nasty characters who had meant to rob him. Holmes is attempting to work out what sort of man owned such a hat, and doing rather well much to Watson’s amazement, predicting such intricate details even down to what kind of products the man used on his hair!

The tale ramps up another notch when the excited Peterson rushes into his rooms after finding something rather curious in the goose that his wife had been preparing for dinner. It is the almost priceless Blue Carbuncle, a jewel previously owned by the Countess of Morcar but had disappeared from her room where she was staying. The police already have a man in custody for the crime, a plumber who carrying out some work in the room when the jewel was assumed to have gone missing. Of course, Holmes believes the man is innocent of the charge and after some digging around is able to unmask the true thief. Sherlock must have a soft heart under that often implacable exterior though as it looks like he might let this one get away. It is Christmas, after all!

This was a really nice little story and came round in perfect timing for the holiday season. At first, I did think it was going to be a bit more of the same old thing i.e. Holmes has a clue, manages to deduce crazy things from the look, smell, taste etc of an object, Watson is befuddled, Holmes provides the explanation, Watson is amazed! I do enjoy this part of course, and his deductions this time were incredibly clever but it can get a little formulaic from story to story. This time, I was delighted to find the cosy little mystery combined with a jewel robbery and then implantation of the said jewel into a goose of all creatures! It was also interesting to see the tender side of Sherlock as he reasons that the jewel will return to its rightful owner and the thief would be unlikely to offend again. Lovely little tale if you fancy reading some detective fiction based in the festive period.

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

four-stars_0

NEXT SHORT STORY: Vuotjärvi by Sarah Hall from the collection The Beautiful Indifference

220px-Goose_attack

Domestic geese have been used for centuries as watch animals and guards, and are among the most aggressive of all poultry – just a random fact for you!

Image and info from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_goose

Short Stories Challenge – The Man With The Twisted Lip by Arthur Conan Doyle from the collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Published August 14, 2015 by bibliobeth

3590

What’s The Man With The Twisted Lip all about?:

Holmes and Watson investigate the disappearance of a gentleman called Neville St. Clair who was last seen by his wife in the most mysterious of circumstances yelling from a window of a house notorious for being an opium den.

What did I think?:

Arthur Conan Doyle has created yet another intriguing detective story in The Man With The Twisted Lip. Once again I found myself hopelessly sympathising with Holmes’ sidekick, Dr Watson as I was pulled into a world where I didn’t have the faintest clue what was going on, that is, until Sherlock explains the case so succinctly that I wondered why I didn’t pick up the clues in the trail of breadcrumbs that was left by the author in the first place. In this tale, Dr Watson proves that chivalry isn’t dead by visiting an opium den to retrieve the husband of a female friend who hasn’t been seen for a few days. What he doesn’t expect is to also find his friend Sherlock there – in fact, he almost misses him completely so great is Sherlock’s disguise.

Even though Holmes admits his fondness for “cocaine injections,” he soothes Watson’s worries and explains that he is working on a case not partaking in some opium fuelled orgy. Before long they are taking a cab to meet a woman desperate for their help after she last saw her husband in the same building but by the time she reaches the top room where she saw him he has vanished. The police working the case are also mystified especially as some of his clothes are found in the same room, there are some bloodstains on the window ledge where he was seen by his wife and a coat belonging to him was washed up on the edge of the river weighted down with coins.

I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone who has not read it but I have to say that I really didn’t see this twist coming! It was pure brilliance, stands out as one of my favourites in the collection and is one of those stories that makes you shake your head in disbelief wondering how on earth a tale like this was imagined as the plot is so intricate. Holmes as always is a fantastic character with so much depth although I feel slightly cynical over the fact that he managed to disguise himself so well that one of his closest friends would not recognise him. Suspending my disbelief however I just let myself go with the flow and enjoy the writing. For in the end I don’t think anyone could deny that Arthur Conan Doyle knows how to spin a yarn and hook his reader. I’ve come to discover while reading this collection that it doesn’t really matter if justice is not served or indeed if no crime has been committed in the first place. Instead, you can just sit back (with a nice cup of tea/your own favourite tipple) relax and enjoy a master of British detective fiction.

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):

four-stars_0

NEXT SHORT STORY: The Nightlong River by Sarah Hall from the collection The Beautiful Indifference