The Sherlockian by Graham Moore
The Sherlockian
by Graham Moore
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/10379020/
NOTE: I read this book using a Benedict Cumberbatch bookmark someone made for me in a swap. I believe that enhanced the reading experience for me quite a lot.
I read this book because I love Sherlock stories. I haven't read all of the originals, I'm sure, but I've read some and seen some, and all together I love the characters and mysteries. But I mostly love different adaptations of Holmes. I love to see what writers will make of the characters, how they will change, what they will keep, etc. This book, therefore, was a fun one for me to read because Holmes is barely mentioned and never takes center stage... but all the while it's like the character is TRYING to get out as various other characters think about him in a "What would Sherlock Holmes Do?" sort of way.
This story is actually two stories in one. There's Arthur Conan Doyle, writer of the Holmes books. He has just killed off his famous main character and everyone hates him for it; he tries to move on with his life, but he gets wrapped up in an ACTUAL real life mystery. This part of the book is best described as: Arthur is a writer who everyone thinks is just as clever as his famous detective main character. Bram is a writer barely scraping by because few people attend his plays but no one reads his book about some vampire called Dracula or something. Together, they fight crime. Yes, that's right, Bram Stoker jumps into the story to help Conan Doyle solve this mystery. Excitement ensues.
In alternating chapters, there's the modern day story of a man named Harold who's in the Baker Street Irregulars (the very real literary Sherlock Holmes fanclub). One day, a Doylean scholar claims he has found the missing diary volume of Arthur Conan Doyle but the man is murdered before the big reveal. So Harold, curious, starts investigating. He encounters descendants of the famous writer, nosy reporters, clues, and mysteries.
Naturally, the missing diary is the one that covers the events that are happening in the first story line of the book. So you wonder, as a reader, what could be so bad that it would cause the diary to go missing forever. And then you find out. Frankly, I didn't buy into some of how it could be so bad, but it was still a fantastic set of mysteries, intertwined through two time periods. Loved the characters/characterizations. And it definitely threw a few twists in there I didn't see coming.
I really enjoyed my time with this book, though it took me a few months to get through as it was my "allergy shots" book and I only read it for about 20 minutes each week. That kept the mystery going at a slow but steady pace. But I hungrily devoured the ending! It was a creative imagining of what might have happened to the diary. And now I desperately want to visit the museum at Reichenbach Falls!