Rating: 
Summary: Elementary
Review: This was my first "Sherlock" book. I am more accustomed to and highly prefer seeing this detective on film. Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett have spoiled me. I love mysteries but I didn't care much for this one. I gave it two stars, however, because I didn't want to be unfair-seeing as how I might be a bit biased.
Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Meyer, Please Don't Write Any More Holmes's Stories
Review: This was the first novel I read that wasn't the writing of Sir Doyle, and, quite frankly, it was the worst. Meyer doesn't seem to be familiar with the Holmes's world. His Holmes is a weak hearted one; he is hooked on Cocaine. Yea, sure, Doyle's Holmes was hooked on Cocaine (that is what is meant by the seven-per-cent solution), but he never showed it as a weak point.Doyle's Holmes was able to take Cocaine whenever he wanted, and could easily quit it whenever he pleased, and, surprisingly, his addiction to Cocaine was only mentioned in the "sign of four," so I don't really approve of Meyer's usage of it, and I do not really accept Holmes as a meager guy. Then, Meyer says, out of the blues, that "The Final Problem" was a forgery that Watson needed to assert in order to hide more interesting occurrences. What was the occurrences? It was trying to get Holmes out of the habit of using Cocaine ... Pshaw! He also claims that Moriarty was Holmes's math tutor, that Holmes's mother left his father, and that was why he hated women. He even describes Moriarty as a peace loving man, and that Holmes was blinded by Cocaine when he claimed that Moriarty was a villain. For Meyer to say that one of the stories written by Doyle is a forgery is a big mistake. Would any one of you say that the best Holmes's stories ever written, were written by anyone other than Doyle? This is ridiculous. One other aspect I hated about this story was that it inserts real existing people to the plot, like Freud! Aside from being dumb, this is really uninteresting. This makes the book a study of human thinking, not a mystery, which is the real essence of the Holmes's stories. Of course you figured out that Freud was supposed to be the one to make Holmes quit Cocaine ... I can say only one thing, "DUMB." Near the end Meyer stoops to give us some mystery, sorry not a mystery but some wannabe thriller. It ends in a man hunt looking mostly like the one presented by Doyle in the "Sign of Four," but on board of a train. I did not like it either. At the end, Holmes saves Vienna and then returns back home having had the silliest adventure in his carrier. And I am selling this book before I tear it into pieces.
Rating: 
Summary: The best of the pseudo-Holmeses
Review: What I truly admire in this book is how it deftly explains the improbable Moriarty of the original tales with an unexpected yet plausible twist - the sort of twist that every mystery story should have, though set at the beginning of the book rather than the more traditional end. The plot is more compelling than the later 'Canary Trainer' and the characters more believable within the context of Doyle's world.
| 
