A Double-Barreled Detective Story (Our American Heritage)

Rating:
Summary: Twain on Automatic Pilot
Review: Twain could always come up with a good yarn, and this is as good as any, so far as plot is concerned. But this send-up of the Sherlock Holmes genre never really gets off the ground. A send-up should be funny. But there is too much in the plot that is evil and dark, so Holmes' appearance -- and his incorrect solution -- become merely annoying. The reader on the tape version does what he can to keep things moving along, but he cannot stifle the inevitable feeling in the listener that this is Twain churning out words for money. Still, it IS Twain after all, and so it does have its moments. Just not enough of them.

Rating:
Summary: Twain on Automatic Pilot
Review: Twain could always come up with a good yarn, and this is as good as any, so far as plot is concerned. But this send-up of the Sherlock Holmes genre never really gets off the ground. A send-up should be funny. But there is too much in the plot that is evil and dark, so Holmes' appearance -- and his incorrect solution -- become merely annoying. The reader on the tape version does what he can to keep things moving along, but he cannot stifle the inevitable feeling in the listener that this is Twain churning out words for money. Still, it IS Twain after all, and so it does have its moments. Just not enough of them.