Good Night, Mr. Holmes

Good Night, Mr. Holmes  (Irene Adler #1) 

  - Carole Nelson Douglas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For any Sherlock Holmes fan, Irene Adler is a fascinating character - smart and intelligent, one of the 4 people and the only woman to get the better of Holmes, and the only woman to win Holmes's admiration. So I felt it was great idea to portray her as a sort of female counterpart of Holmes - with a strong ability to observe and reason, wonderful skill at disguise, and probably much more resourcefulness.

I also think it was very ingenious on the author's part to expand 'A Scandal in Bohemia' to create a backstory for Irene Adler, and present her side of the story. In the canon, the king represents Irene as a cunning and vengeful woman whereas Irene says she is the one who has been wronged, and in the end Holmes seems to consider Irene much superior as a person. This novel provides an explanation of how and why of her claim, and why Holmes might have been justified in regarding her far more than the king.

I think that this novel makes a significant statement of feminism. We have here a woman, alone in the world, working to survive in Victorian England on her skills and talent, and making a good job of it. It also demonstrates how "cleverness" in a woman is portrayed by the patriarchal world as "scheming", while the truth might be the other way round.

Since Holmes has Dr. Watson, Irene must have a sidekick-biographer - so there is a Penelope (or Nell, as Irene calls her). I found Nell an extremely annoying character, who doesn't really have the mental strength to survive her misfortunes, but cannot stop moralizing Irene, who has sheltered her. In a regency romance kind of setting, she might be the spinster who has neither wealth nor charm, and her bitterness due to this drives her to take a high moral ground. There doesn't seem to be any reason why Irene may consider her a friend.

The author created two independent women (yes, Nell eventually learns to support herself financially), but then proceeded to spoil it by having Godfrey Norton, and extremely kind and handsome man, go out of the way to make life easy for both of them. By having relationship between him Nell start in a way indicating romance, but suddenly revealed as a brotherly affection. By having the heartbroken Irene suddenly fall head-over-heels-in-love with him. Of course we know from the canon that Norton marries Irene, but the way these relationships were developed were uncharacteristic in the novel.

Despite the drawbacks, and the amount of time spent in building up the backstories, I found it interesting and would like to explore more books in the series.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

  - Alix E. Harrow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The concept of finding another world through an unexpected doorway, a portal, is not something new - Narnia is the first thing that comes to mind, followed by several more. However, the way author has built up a story around it, is wonderful and engaging. I loved the writing style and the language. This is essentially an adventure story, with a suitable happy ending (apologies for the mild spoiler, but this mattered to me, specially in these stressful times).

On the downside, it stretched a bit too much, describing the different worlds that can be reached through different doors, and explaining the pseudo-science and pseudo-philosophy behind the interconnection of the worlds, sometimes repetitively. And the protagonist makes several stupid mistakes, even accounting for her young age and naivete.

Here are a couple of beautiful lines from the book:

“The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.”

“Maybe all powerful men are cowards at heart, because in their hearts they know power is temporary.”

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

  - Jamyang Norbu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Somewhere between 2.5 to 3 stars for this one, most of which are contributed by my biased interest in this topic. The gap years, which Conan Doyle left unexplained (except the cursory statement that Holmes spent most of the time in India and Tibet), are a source of great interest to any Sherlockian. And yet, though I have read quite a few Pastiche works, and know of many more, I am not aware of any other work that attempts to tell the story of this time. And so, being an Indian, an admirer of Tibetan culture and a sympathizer of Tibetan cause, this book held a great appeal for me.

I felt that thus uniquely positioned, it had a great potential, and the first half fulfills it. I enjoyed reading about the Bombay of those times, the train journey, and the journey through the hills to Tibet. I liked even more, reading about the Tibetan cultural and political context, glimpse into their religious and spiritual beliefs. Overall, it recreates the period very well, and I did learn a few things about the history of the region.

Although I haven't read Rudyard Kipling's 'Kim', I was amused to note that the author weaved in the setting from it so well into the story, specially positioning the character of Hurree Chander as Holmes's sidekick (one who is much more effective than Dr Watson). Even though I didn't appreciate the obsequious attitude of Hurree towards any Englishman or his being a great proponent of the British system (no admirer of the Raj myself), I liked the fact that the author gave him a dignity and intelligence that earned him regard even from his commanding officers.

A few incidents in the story borrow inspiration from the canon rather heavily, and I was both amused and a bit annoyed by these - when Holmes infers Hurree's chain of thoughts, burglary of an important paper followed by fire, being the most striking ones.

However, it was the last 40% that killed it for me (and also for many others, as I see from the reviews). It is heavy on occult and supernatural, combined with thrilling chase sequences. There is no deductive reasoning by Holmes - which is his USP, that makes him the most famous fictional detective of all times, or possibly even the most famous character. Holmes is more of an action hero, more of a James Bond, but with psychic abilities. Within this context, the author managed to bring in one really quirky twist (no spoilers!). There are two more twists, but one is what you could call 'too much of a good thing' and the other one could be seen miles ahead.

I so wish that the author had kept the story line within the scope of rationale thought and logical reasoning, because it had so much going for it.

Mini Reviews - XII

A Study in Sherlock (Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon)
  - Miscellaneous

Its quite a mixed bag of stories, set over a range of time frames, some featuring Holmes, many featuring people inspired by Holmes. Some of the stories were nice, while others were insipid. In fact, after reading the first story, I considered abandoning it (even though I loved the Flavia de Luce series by the Author Alan Bradley). There were a few murder mysteries written in the style of Doyle or Christie, I enjoyed those though I was able to figure out the solution - something that does not usually happen with either canon. Overall, I would rate it between 2.5 to 3 stars.


Andy Carpenter #5 (Dead Center)
  - David Rosenfelt

I had enjoyed the series so far, but looks like its time to part ways.
This installment had a setting that was too far-fetched, and the rest of the story has become to sound formulaic (but perhaps that's the norm and the selling point for series like this). After leading through obvious red-herrings (because when the murderer is too obvious from the start, you can be assured that it will not turn out to be the right solution), it appeared that the author was in a hurry to conclude.
The writing style is also not holding me any more. The humorous asides, that were entertaining earlier in the series, are now getting to me - too much of a good thing? I am no fan of high literature, I prefer engaging stories, related in a straightforward manner, but the language in this one has started feeling too juvenile even for me.


The Diva Runs out of Thyme
  - Krista Davis

About 30% into the book, I was fully inclined to abandon it. The author just tried too hard to tell us how mean and shallow Natasha is - every alternate chapter she gives useless and entitled advice to the readers in her column (how many people can afford to rent a limo for their guests to roam about the city in style?!) ... she is exactly a diva, throwing tantrums all around and expecting people to fawn over her. In contrast, the main character is too saccharine (or maybe a doormat) who lets everyone impose over her, and who can prepare a formal meal for 14 people without batting an eyelid. Her mother and sister are unbearable, the only likeable characters have a very minor role.
Eventually, since I cant not know who the killer was, I skimmed through it, skipping the advice columns and lengthy descriptions of food preps, through irrelevant sidetracks (what was that about the colonel and hearse!) to reach a convoluted solution.
Cant figure out why is it ranked so high on the GR cozy mystery lists.

PS: I don't remember why I started numbering these "mini reviews" collections in roman numerals. I hope I won't write so many of them to not be able to annotate the roman number easily :D