The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

Rating:
Summary: Arthur Conan Doyle meets Joseph Bell.
Review: David Pirie's "The Patient's Eyes" is the first in a series of books about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell. Doyle is a young medical student in Edinburgh when he meets Bell, who is both a teacher in the medical school and a forensic scientist. Doyle soon becomes Bell's clerk and the two work together on a number of cases, including the very strange one in this novel.

Doyle's patient, Heather Grace, is a lovely young woman who suffers from eye troubles and nightmares. She also believes that a man has been surreptitiously following her, and may wish to do her harm. Since Miss Grace is about to come into a great deal of money, Doyle suspects that her relatives may want to get their hands on her fortune. When Dr. Bell intercedes in the case, he uses his forensic skills, his intuition, and his uncanny powers of detection to get to the bottom of the affair.

Pirie is a superior writer and he brings all of the characters in "The Patient's Eyes" to brilliant life. Doyle is a callow and troubled young man who comes from a dysfunctional family. Bell is Doyle's mentor, and he may be the real life model for the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Pirie's language, settings, and even the titles he chooses for his chapters are all reminiscent of those used in the Sherlock Holmes stories. There are also puzzles galore in this book to intrigue those who love interesting ciphers.

The story is complicated yet thoroughly engrossing, and I was genuinely surprised by the developments at the end of the book. Pirie has a knack for writing satisfying mysteries and I look forward to more novels about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell.

Rating:
Summary: Arthur Conan Doyle meets Joseph Bell.
Review: David Pirie's "The Patient's Eyes" is the first in a series of books about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell. Doyle is a young medical student in Edinburgh when he meets Bell, who is both a teacher in the medical school and a forensic scientist. Doyle soon becomes Bell's clerk and the two work together on a number of cases, including the very strange one in this novel.

Doyle's patient, Heather Grace, is a lovely young woman who suffers from eye troubles and nightmares. She also believes that a man has been surreptitiously following her, and may wish to do her harm. Since Miss Grace is about to come into a great deal of money, Doyle suspects that her relatives may want to get their hands on her fortune. When Dr. Bell intercedes in the case, he uses his forensic skills, his intuition, and his uncanny powers of detection to get to the bottom of the affair.

Pirie is a superior writer and he brings all of the characters in "The Patient's Eyes" to brilliant life. Doyle is a callow and troubled young man who comes from a dysfunctional family. Bell is Doyle's mentor, and he may be the real life model for the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Pirie's language, settings, and even the titles he chooses for his chapters are all reminiscent of those used in the Sherlock Holmes stories. There are also puzzles galore in this book to intrigue those who love interesting ciphers.

The story is complicated yet thoroughly engrossing, and I was genuinely surprised by the developments at the end of the book. Pirie has a knack for writing satisfying mysteries and I look forward to more novels about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST
Review: Everyone who loves a good Sherlock Holmes mystery MUST read this book! This is the difinative fictional book on the Master's creator.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't quite work....
Review: First-time novelist David Pirie deserves kudos for doing
something a little different along the lines of a Sherlock
Holmes pastiche. His characters are Dr. Bell and Conan Doyle
themselves. On the other hand, he runs off the rails pretty
early on, with a perfervid yet elliptical style that is more
along the lines of Anna Katherine Green than Dr. Watson, and
with (oh, no, not again!) standard pastiche plot B.

There is no chemistry (or even friendship) between Dr. Bell and
Dr. Conan Doyle, and their cases--- "real life" incidents that
are close parallels to Holmes-Watson adventures such as
"The Speckled Band" and "The Solitary Cyclist"--- tend to
be more annoying or unsatisfying than interesting.

The usual problem with standard pastiche plot B is that the
behavior of a central character is necessarily totally
inconsistent with his actual aims--- here the problem is
magnified, since there are at least three and maybe four
characters whose behavior throughout the "adventure" makes no
sense whatsoever in terms of their eventually-revealed
motivations.

Conan Doyle's overheated style continually sets the reader up
for "a revelation more terrifying than mere mortal flesh can
endure," and then follows up with, more often than not,
no payoff at all, or a payoff that amounts to an empty
pay envelope. At the end of the very episodic "novel," Dr.
Conan Doyle hints that in the next adventure, we'll encounter
Jack the Ripper (whom CD and Bell have seemingly matched wits
with years before during Watson's medical school days).
It's a promising setup, but we've been burned so often in
the present book, I wonder if it is worth checking out the next
in line.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't quite work....
Review: First-time novelist David Pirie deserves kudos for doing
something a little different along the lines of a Sherlock
Holmes pastiche. His characters are Dr. Bell and Conan Doyle
themselves. On the other hand, he runs off the rails pretty
early on, with a perfervid yet elliptical style that is more
along the lines of Anna Katherine Green than Dr. Watson, and
with (oh, no, not again!) standard pastiche plot B.

There is no chemistry (or even friendship) between Dr. Bell and
Dr. Conan Doyle, and their cases--- "real life" incidents that
are close parallels to Holmes-Watson adventures such as
"The Speckled Band" and "The Solitary Cyclist"--- tend to
be more annoying or unsatisfying than interesting.

The usual problem with standard pastiche plot B is that the
behavior of a central character is necessarily totally
inconsistent with his actual aims--- here the problem is
magnified, since there are at least three and maybe four
characters whose behavior throughout the "adventure" makes no
sense whatsoever in terms of their eventually-revealed
motivations.

Conan Doyle's overheated style continually sets the reader up
for "a revelation more terrifying than mere mortal flesh can
endure," and then follows up with, more often than not,
no payoff at all, or a payoff that amounts to an empty
pay envelope. At the end of the very episodic "novel," Dr.
Conan Doyle hints that in the next adventure, we'll encounter
Jack the Ripper (whom CD and Bell have seemingly matched wits
with years before during Watson's medical school days).
It's a promising setup, but we've been burned so often in
the present book, I wonder if it is worth checking out the next
in line.

Rating:
Summary: You won't sleep well for a week!
Review: I was skeptical of another attempt at a Holmes resurrection but I was more than satisfied by this brilliant novel. I couldn't put it down and was often shocked and surprised by the turn of events. Two nights in a row I was up until well past 2 a.m. because I couldn't find the right place to let off for the night. The style is very in keeping with Arthur Conan Doyle's original work - at times I felt like I was reading his own words. I finished it this afternoon and want to turn right around and read it over to see all the threads connect and interweave. Very well done Mr. Pirie - more please!

Rating:
Summary: Holmes fans and historical mystery readers will enjoy
Review: In 1878, a bored Arthur Conan Doyle is a second year medical student in Edinburgh when the brilliant but unbearable megalomaniac Dr. Joseph Bell becomes his mentor (or perhaps tormentor). Though no one likes Dr. Bell everyone agrees he is a genius. His pioneering work in forensic medicine has fascinated law enforcement and academia alike and has led to a success criminal investigation career.

Arthur actually surprises himself when he realizes he relishes solving mystery puzzles and even more shocking at least to him working with' or perhaps better put, for the frustrating Dr. Bell. Arthur solves several mysteries and soon needs to protect Heather Grace, a victim of nightmares following the mass murder of her family. An obsessed Arthur believes that Heather remains in jeopardy from a killer who plans to finish the job unless he can protect the woman he cherishes.

This reviewer's first reaction to this novel was oy vey not another Holmes/Doyle novel. However, that quickly changed from the beginning to thoughts of how entertainingly brilliant is the one sitting read THE PATIENT'S EYES. Holmes fans and historical mystery readers will enjoy the plot that also enables the audience to solve a puzzler. However, the key to what makes this a wonderfully refreshing novel is Doyle, whom David Pirie depicts as a clever intermixing of the ingenious Holmes with the awed Watson.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!
Review: This is a terrific read - fast paced and complex. I read it in a single sitting, then leafed back through. It's a "keeper" that won't get cycled through the used book store - it'll be read again and again, especially as Pirie promises more in the series. The next in the series will be released in the U.K. in Oct. 2002, and I await it with pleasant anticipation.

Rating:
Summary: The first case for Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Joseph Bell
Review: Those who have admired the cases of Sherlock Holmes and found "The 7 Percent Solution" to be a fresh look at the first great detective of popular fiction will find a different game afoot in "The Patient's Eye." The intriguing premise for David Pirie's novel is that Arthur Conan Doyle is playing the Watson role to Dr. Joseph Bell, the writer's real-life mentor in medical school at Edinburough and the model for Holmes. Doyle starts off in the role of Scully, unable to accept that the practice of medicine has anything to do with Dr. Bell's deductive reasoning from minute clues, but in due course he becomes a true believer in Bell's pioneering work in forensic medicine.

The case involves Miss Heather Grace, a young heiress who has been traumatized by an attack by a lunatic who murdered her parents. Now Miss Grace is subject to visions of a figure who follows her on her bicycle. The conceit here is that Pirie is working backwards from several of the cases from the Holmes canon, most obviously "The Solitary Cyclist," but also "The Speckled Band" and "Wisteria Lodge." The idea is that Doyle later fictionalized these stories from the "real" events contained herein. It was a good move on Pirie's part not to simply offer up the "true" story of one the original Holmes mysteries or to try and tackle one of the "biggies" in the canon. There is also more romance than you find in Doyle, what with the young doctor falling for his patient.

Most importantly, Pirie is able to present Doyle and Bell as interesting substitutes for Watson and Holmes. There is no pretense of friendship between the pair; they are teacher and student. Doyle is not as much the inept foil that Watson serves in the stories (indeed, he solves several initial mysteries before getting in over his head) and Bell is arguably more charismatic than the driven Holmes. There are times when Pirie follows the Doyle model too closely and the gallery of suspects is rather overdrawn, but as the first effort in what is clearly going to be a developing series, "The Patient's Eyes" is worth the reading. The execution is not quite up to the ambitious idea, but that is a minor concern. The one caveat is that you should read over the original Sherlock Holmes stories on which this novel is based to better appreciate how Pirie is using them in this story.