Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A retired Sherlock Holmes, now in his seventies and disguised as a Cambridge professor, is dramatically disturbed one day when a modestly successful author in his late-sixties named Arthur Conan Doyle comes to call. This Conan Doyle, notable only for his historical romances, science fiction, and a three-volume history of the Boer War (but no detective tales), knows somehow of the false professor's true identity. To Holmes's surprise, he asks for help in solving a case that strains the limits of credulity by suggesting the existence of parallel worlds.
Sherlock Holmes on one last adventure in 1920s' London...employed by the author Arthur Conan Doyle? We might ask ourselves how such a thing can be possible.
This tale is discovered in a long-forgotten manuscript in 1940s' Buenos Aires. The librarian who finds it employs an Argentinian P.I. to help him grasp the deepest implications of the text. The story of the two Argentinians' brief and ultimately violent encounter provides a hardboiled frame to the last endeavor of Sherlock Holmes.
Synopsis
This meta-fiction tale centered on Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle, but also involving several famous physicists of the 1920s, challenges Holmes with a case of crime, conspiracy, and espionage. A retired Sherlock Holmes, now in his seventies and disguised as a Cambridge professor, is dramatically disturbed one day when a modestly successful author in his late-sixties named Arthur Conan Doyle comes to call. This Conan Doyle, notable only for his historical romances, science fiction, and a three-volume history of the Boer War (but no detective tales), knows somehow of the false professor's true identity. To Holmes's surprise, he asks for help in solving a case that strains the limits of credulity by suggesting the existence of parallel worlds.
Sherlock Holmes on one last adventure in 1920s' London...employed by the author Arthur Conan Doyle? We might ask ourselves how such a thing can be possible.
This tale is discovered in a long-forgotten manuscript in 1940s' Buenos Aires. The librarian who finds it employs an Argentinian P.I. to help him grasp the deepest implications of the text. The story of the two Argentinians' brief and ultimately violent encounter provides a hardboiled frame to the last endeavor of Sherlock Holmes.
Synopsis
From the Edgar
(R)-nominated author of
Hammett Unwritten and
Woman with a Blue Pencil comes a startling meta-fiction tale told in the voice of Sherlock Holmes. Set in 1920s' London, Cambridge, and Paris, Holmes's final adventure leads him through labyrinths of crime and espionage in a mortally dangerous inquiry into the unseen nature of existence itself.
Sherlock Holmes, now in his seventies, retired from investigations and peaceably disguised as a professor at Cambridge, is shaken when a modestly successful author in his late-sixties named Arthur Conan Doyle calls upon him at the university. This Conan Doyle, notable for historical adventure stories, science fiction, and a three-volume history of the Boer War (but no detective tales), somehow knows of the false professor's true identity and pleads for investigative assistance. Someone is trying to kill Conan Doyle. Who? Why? Good questions, but what intrigues Holmes most is how the "middling scribbler" ascertained Holmes's identity in the first place, despite the detective's perfect disguise. Holmes takes the case.
There is danger every step of the way. Great powers want the investigation quashed. But with the assistance of Dr. Watson's widow, Holmes persists, exploring seances, the esoterica of Edgar Allan Poe, the revolutionary new science of quantum mechanics, and his own long-denied sense of loss and solitude.
Ultimately, even Sherlock Holmes is unprepared for what the evidence suggests.