Book Review: The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

I think I bought this one from the thrift store. I've been into Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid, plus I liked the academia angle of this Sherlockian mystery. Back of book summary:

Hurtling from present day New York to Victorian London, The Sherlockian weaves the history of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into an inspired and entertaining double mystery that proves to be anything but "elementary."

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning-crowds sported black armbands in grief-and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.... Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold-using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories-who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

Sounds right up my alley, right? First off, a quibble about the title. As the main character explains, Sherlockians are from a school of thought that Sherlock Holmes was real and really wrote the books (similar to the Sherlockian game, I guess), while the Doyleans were more normal about it and did see Arthur Conan Doyle as the author of the books. According to The Sherlockian, the groups were opposed to each other, nearly rivals. The dead guy made looking for Conan Doyle's lost diary his life's goal, which suggests he was not a Sherlockian but a Doylean. The main guy didn't seem like much of a Sherlockian either, but then he wasn't purely academic. Clearly the title is chosen more for its appeal, as more people know who Sherlock Holmes is than Arthur Conan Doyle.

This book has two plots: we follow Harold in the present day as he tries to solve the dead scholar's murder and find the lost diary, and in the second we follow Conan Doyle himself as he deals with the aftermath of "killing off" Sherlock Holmes (people wore mourning bands because they were so sad, and some angry ones physically attacked ACD in the street, lol) and tries to solve some serial murders. This part actually felt weaker than the "modern" part, which is saying something. ACD and Bram Stoker (they were BFFs IRL) are kickass sleuths! At one point they crossdress to get into a suffragette meeting, lolwut. The modern stuff was also rather suspend-your-disbelief-y (Harold really wore his deerstalker cap around EVERYWHERE? And no one ever bullied him for it?). I did like how the book made it clear that murder is horrible and sad; sometimes murder mysteries gloss over that. 

There's an obligatory female character (I want to say her name is Sophie or something?) who's all chipper and nice and normal and I braced myself for their inevitable falling in love and getting into a relationship together and it. didn't happen? The reason she kept hanging out with him to solve the murder made sense (it wasn't because she thought he was cute but because she was being paid to), and while Harold does feel comfortable around her (which he never does with anyone because he's so anti-social), they grow to like each other as friends I think, not as romantic prospects. So that part was somewhat refreshing to read. Also she was quick-thinking and kind of badass. In the 1900s part of the book, it's young women who are getting serial-murdered, and they're found naked, so :/ There are suffragettes, which is cool, although ACD was sexist to them (at one point IRL they mailed him a pipe bomb, lol [he wasn't hurt]). ACD really was such a dick, though, wasn't he? Having Sherlock Holmes be his most famous creation when he hated him is so hilarious. It's what he deserves.

I'm writing about my thoughts on the ending here, highlight to read: So obviously he finds the diary but it's so sad 'cause the dead scholar really killed himself thinking it was burned when it wasn't so he threw his life away for nothing. Plus that guy was smarter than Harold and he didn't figure it out? Plus then he's so sad after reading about the serial murders and ACD killing the incel serial killer guy and his sister accidentally that Harold lets the girl throw the book into Reichenbach Falls??? Like I don't care how sad a culturally valuable item makes me, or if it changes things or the author's reputation; I am absolutely not going to destroy it, or let anyone else destroy it. My archivist brain is cringing just thinking about it. Also, they really threw the diary down Reichenback Falls. Like Sherlock Holmes. Wow. Also, the serial-murdered women are suffragette best friends, two of whom are lesbians in love. The first two were wooed by and eloped with the same young man so he could rape and kill them, just because he was so violently misogynistic and hated suffragettes. These young women were best friends, and they didn't even talk to each other about who they were courting? That makes no sense. Women talk to each other, and these girls were really close.

Anyway, if you're a true Sherlock Holmes scholar/academic/fan this may annoy you, but it was an enjoyable way to pass a four-hour reference shift. I'm not sorry I read it, but as you can see, I don't even remember the characters' names. Check it out from the library if it sounds interesting to you. 

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Read in: May 23
From: Savers thrift store
Status: give away

Cover notes: I really like the use of the classic pipe turned on its side with a blood splatter to make a question mark. I also like the old paper-esque background. Such good cover design.

Trigger warnings for this book: murder, rape, misogynistic violence and murder, blood, gore, suicide, shooting deaths, wound and corpse descriptions, serial killer, homophobia, lesbophobia, sexism, bomb mentions, terrorism mentions, archival items misuse and destruction

July-September 2017 books

I didn’t read very much at all these last 3 months. I was just super busy and worked throughout the summer.

The first book I started in June was The Moor, a Sherlock Holmes book by Laurie R. King where he and his wife, Mary Russell, solve a mystery in the moor. I know, right? I totally thought this was going to be derivative fanfiction and that Mary was going to be a Mary Sue (pun unintended). This book was actually really good, very well written, and it did not trample on the Sherlock Holmes legacy. Mary is this badass Jewish feminist scholar and she wears trousers and keeps her last name in the 1920s! She takes over the Watson role, helping Sherlock and being the narrator of the novel. The only thing I didn’t like was that the ending was pretty abrupt. I actually want to read the rest of the series. 4/5

After that was Highland Fling, a historical romance novel by Amanda Scott that had more history than romance. The romance was pretty uneven and typical (headstrong redhead and this older rich dude who resists his attraction to her then is like ‘I’m going to tame you’, gag me with a spoon), but the historical stuff was interesting. England’s dickishness in taking over other countries is well known, but I hadn’t heard much about how it was for Scotland. Anyway this was ok and whiled away the time. 3.5/5

I decided to start reading books from my ever-growing to-read list, and checked out All the Single Ladies: unmarried women and the rise of an independent nation by Rebecca Traister from my library. This book did not disappoint: it talked about the views and roles of single women (mostly in the US) and the changes they’ve made in this country and culture. It was so good and affirming to read about all the kickass ladies out there who didn’t get married and had good, fulfilling lives, as well as women who today are dealing with various aspects of being single. I liked that Traister followed up with the women she interviewed for the book so that we could see where they were a few years later at the time of publication. The author is currently married with kids but was single well into her late twenties, so she gets it. I may buy this book for my own library. 4/5

The last book of this trimester is Morality for Beautiful Girls, the third book of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. He is British, and I am usually very suspicious of books set in countries the author is not from, and of books with characters of color when the author is white, but Wikipedia says he was born in Zimbabwe and worked in Botswana as an adult, so it appears he knows his stuff. The books (I’ve read another book in this series many years ago) sound like he’s done his research, and have colloquisms and the like. Mma Precious Ramotswe runs a detective agency with her assistant Mma Grace Makutsi and is called upon to solve all sorts of mysteries. In just this book MFBG, the duo must (together and/or separately) determine if a government man’s brother is being poisoned by his wife, figure out where a feral child found in the bush came from, run the detective agency and Mma Ramotswe’s fiance’s auto repair shop simultaneously, try to figure out why the fiance, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, is acting the way he is, and detect if any of the contestants of a local beauty and morality contest are, in fact, immoral. This is a lot of plots going on, but McCall Smith handles them all well. The characters are very well written, interesting and likeable. I want to read the rest of the series but since there are like 17, I’ll stick to getting them from the library. 4.4/5

LA Times Festival of Books 2012

Just got back from it. I had a great time! I got a free mini mocha McFrappe (McDonald's answer to the Frappuccino or however you spell that), a chocolate brownie Clif bar and fruit gummy thing, a sample of avocado-pineapple smoothie (consistency is like applesauce but it tastes like calmer, less acidic pineapple),  a pretty little copy of the Quran, some bookmarks, a purple tote bag, a plastic visor with the USC Keck Medical Center logo, and an I READ button. I wrote what I'm reading on the big canvas poster the LA Times has where you can do that (that's where I got the button), and my nerdy heart was warmed when I saw others had written DFTBA and I BELIEVE IN SHERLOCK HOLMES! :') The only thing I'm sad about is that John Green was only there on Saturday, yesterday, so I wasn't able to see/hear/meet him. I bought a bigger button with the LATFOB logo (this year's has a dinosaur) and saw Julie Andrews (!) from a ways away and heard her read from her children's book. I also went to a panel at the YA stage and heard The Fug Girls and a couple other YA authors read from their books and talk about the writing process. Then I bought Spoiled and had it signed by the Fug Girls themselves! I was so psyched to meet them; I've been reading their blog for years and feel like I know them. They were very nice and just as bubbly as I'd imagined them. Now I have to head back to school, but I'm glad I got a chance to go!

The Rivals and Further Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

I read two books that are collections of short mystery and detective stories, written and set around the same time as Sherlock Holmes. They ranged from the mediocre (there were some where the mystery was solved but the person got off free, or where the ending was just "...oh." I hate that) to the awesome (a blind detective BAMF is put in a hostage situation because the villains know he's the only one who can stop them. He cuts the electrical light's cord, plunging the room in darkness and putting them all on equal footing. He has the drop on them due to his enhanced hearing and threatens to shoot anyone who moves. They all sit there in the darkness until his friends arrive to save him. The whole time he didn't have a gun). My favorite ones where the ones with lady detectives, because usually other people (men, mostly. These stories tend to be quite male-centric as a matter of course) underestimate them and they come out and solve the case like a boss. I think I liked the Sherlock Holmes stories more because Conan Doyle is better about explaining how he figured out the case. It drives me crazy when no explanations are given. The writing varied due to the different authors, but most of it was about as good as Conan Doyle's. I think the popularity of Sherlock Holmes is due mainly to his singular character. He's just so memorable and iconic. You think of mysteries and detectives and you think of Sherlock Holmes and his friend Watson.