The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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The dozen stories in this collection make up the final book in the Sherlock Holmes canon. It’s not the most beloved of the Holmes’ books, but Doyle did take some bold diversions from the usual Sherlock formula (probably in an attempt to maintain his own interest in the character.) Some of the experiments are regarded as fails. I’ll discuss the anomalous tales, with the understanding that most of the other stories follow the recipe.


In “The Adventure of the Creeping Man” Doyle ventures into what some have called bad sci-fi with a tale in the vein of “Island of Doctor Moreau.” While the farfetched nature of the story stands in contrast to the usual enlightened rationality of Holmes, to be fair, it’s hard to fault anyone living through the early decades of the twentieth century for imagining some outlandish possibilities — given the wild scientific and technological advances being seen. In this collection we see microscopes and other disruptive technologies.


In “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” Holmes, himself, takes up narration (i.e. Doctor Watson’s job.) In my view, besides Holmes’s occasional chiding of Watson and his writings, there didn’t seem to be as great a distinction in voice as Doyle might have hoped to achieve.


“The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane” is also narrated by Holmes, but is also anomalous for the nature of its solution. While a murder investigation is solved using Holmes’s arcane knowledge, it might leave many readers feeling that it was an anticlimactic variation on the formula.


A couple stories, “The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger” and – to a lesser extent – “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place” skip the usual necessity of Holmes solving the case and taking part in the explanation of discoveries, and – instead – the solution is presented entirely by individuals involved in the mystery. This harms the protagonist’s agency.


Despite the lack of love this collection receives, generally, it does still present some interesting cases and I credit Doyle both for taking chances and for showing an evolution of Holmes and his world.


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