New Review

Great new review of Holmes and Watson: The War Years from David Ruffle

http://storiesfromlymelight.blogspot.com/2013/06/holmes-and-watson-war-yearsa-review_7.html?spref=fb

Holmes and Watson: The War Years….a review.

It was the time of Queen Victoria’s “Little Wars” and the “War to End All Wars”. It was also the time of Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson. Watson, the man, would be formed by his experiences in the British “Second Afghan War”, before he ever met Sherlock Holmes in an adventure, he would record this experience as Watson’s Afghan Adventure, a tale of war and mystery. Later, Holmes and Watson would go on to not only share the problems of crime solving, Watson’s three marriages, a purported tragedy at Reichenbach, and Holmes’s return from the dead; they would also share two more wartime experiences. In Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Boer Wagon, they are called on by Mycroft Holmes and the British government to go to the battleground of South Africa. Their mission is to stop the flow of army secrets to the Boers and try to recover a King’s ransom in gold. By the time of their third great wartime adventure the two friends are retired, but Mycroft, and the government, need them once more as they are called on in Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels. Holmes and Watson had already foiled the plans of a German espionage ring at the start of the Great War in the tale Watson called “His Last Bow.” But it was not, in reality, Holmes’s last bow. Holmes and Watson are sent now to the little war within a war, the killing fields of Dublin in 1916 and the Irish Rebellion. Can they stop it? And can they stop the plans of a renegade member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police? . A special hardback edition including all three bestselling Sherlock Holmes novels from Kieran McMullen.

This hardback edition of Kieran McMullen’s three Holmes novels looks very handsome indeed and the content no less so. The author is an ex-Army man and this shows itself in the details of Army life which we can be confident has been checked and double checked. These details however do not in any way overshadow the action or get in the way of a good story (which these are). Watson’s Afghan Adventure fills in all the details of Watson’s campaign in Afghanistan and gives us the Doctor Watson that we know….courageous, loyal and far from stupid. It is at time harrowing although not without humour and the author paints a very vivid picture of camp life with an array of characters all finely drawn. ‘The Mystery of the Boer Wagon’ is my own particular favourite. A tale with Holmes, Watson and Conan Doyle acting together to seek out a leak of military information and a no small matter or recovering stolen gold. A rollicking adventure, it fairly rattles along and introduces us to some great characters along the way including a young, very young Basil Rathbone! A hugely enjoyable read which amply rewards the time spent in reading it. Highly recommended. ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Irish Rebels’ is a different kettle of fish. The mood is downbeat, although no less exciting than the previous two novels. This is 1916 and the time of the Easter uprising in Ireland and Holmes and Watson find themselves catapulted into the action. One gets the impression that neither man had any stomach for what they have been asked to do. It was a desperately sad time for all concerned and it is impossible to stand outside the GPO in Dublin and not think of the cruel fate in store for the ringleaders. Not England’s finest hour and we get the mood of this from the final chapter. Not an easy read then, but a very good one.