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, 14:48, 16 April 2010Created page with '{{infobox |title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions |sort= Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions |author=H Paul Jeffers…'
{{infobox
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions
|sort= Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions
|author=H Paul Jeffers
|reviewer=Robert James
|genre=Crime
|summary=This account of a lost Sherlock Holmes adventure, featuring
future president Teddy Roosevelt as 'Watson', is readable but fails to
really reach the heights of the best crime novels.
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Maybe
|paperback=1848565097
|pages=192
|publisher=Titan Books Ltd
|date=February 2010
|isbn=978-1848565098
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565097</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>1848565097</amazonus>
}}
After replying to an article written by the world's first consulting
detective, Sherlock Holmes, young Teddy Roosevelt, about to study law
at Columbia, strikes up a correspondence with him. They're pleased to
finally meet when Holmes is acting in America – and naturally,
Roosevelt introduces him to another friend, NYPD Detective Will
Hargreaves. Of course, foul play is in the air – and the three men are
led into an investigation which starts off as 'just' a dead body, but
leads them to discover a plot against the President himself,
Rutherford Hayes.
Holmes is a legendary character, Roosevelt is one of the most famous
American presidents, and it's good to see the pair of them together
here. There's a reasonable enough mystery; we get the expected nods to
Holmes fans such as myself – mentions of Mycroft, carriage chases, and
the rest. And yet, this mystery never really gets going properly.
There's nothing much wrong with it – the dialogue, descriptions, and
plotting are all fine – but that's all they are. There's nothing that
lifts it up into the realms where I'd be falling over myself to
recommend it to you. Admittedly, it's probably not being helped by the
fact that I read another book in the same series immediately after it
which was far superior – the Man From Hell, mentioned below – but even
before I'd read that book, this one was never likely to stick in my
mind for very long.
It's also an extremely slight book – while it weighs in at about 200
pages overall, only 110 or so of them are the 'main' plot, with a few
more being the foreword, introduction and afterword. Meanwhile, 60 or
so are devoted to notes on the book tying the events to actual history
and to Sherlockian studies, and to a preview of another book in the
series. This is all very worthy, but if anything, just adds to the
feeling that it was written as an exercise in tying together two
famous names, rather than as a book in its own right.
Really, that's my main problem with the story. It's not bad by any
means – the two main characters of Sherlock and Teddy are captured
rather well, especially some of the expected scenes in which Holmes
dazzles new acquaintances by telling them many facts about themselves.
But compared to the vast amount of Holmes literature out there, and
the even more massive field of general detective novels, it's very
hard to direct you to this above many more superior books.
Having said that, if you're such a fan of Holmes that you want to read
anything he features in, I wouldn't actively dissuade you from this
one.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
Further Reading: Anyone interested in Sherlock may be more tempted by
the superb non-fiction book [[Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections
Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
by Alistair Duncan]]. If you're more interested in crime fiction set
around the turn of the 20th century than just in Holmes, I'd suggest
taking a look at Jed Rubenfeld's excellent [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]], which sees Sigmund Freud turn detective in 1909 New York.
Finally, if I can get away with three recommendations here, I absolutely loved [[The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From Hell by Barie Roberts|Sherlock Holmes and the Man From Hell]] by Barrie Roberts, in the same series as this novel.
{{amazontext|amazon=1848565097}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=7094882}}
{{commenthead}}
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions
|sort= Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : The Stalwart Companions
|author=H Paul Jeffers
|reviewer=Robert James
|genre=Crime
|summary=This account of a lost Sherlock Holmes adventure, featuring
future president Teddy Roosevelt as 'Watson', is readable but fails to
really reach the heights of the best crime novels.
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Maybe
|paperback=1848565097
|pages=192
|publisher=Titan Books Ltd
|date=February 2010
|isbn=978-1848565098
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848565097</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>1848565097</amazonus>
}}
After replying to an article written by the world's first consulting
detective, Sherlock Holmes, young Teddy Roosevelt, about to study law
at Columbia, strikes up a correspondence with him. They're pleased to
finally meet when Holmes is acting in America – and naturally,
Roosevelt introduces him to another friend, NYPD Detective Will
Hargreaves. Of course, foul play is in the air – and the three men are
led into an investigation which starts off as 'just' a dead body, but
leads them to discover a plot against the President himself,
Rutherford Hayes.
Holmes is a legendary character, Roosevelt is one of the most famous
American presidents, and it's good to see the pair of them together
here. There's a reasonable enough mystery; we get the expected nods to
Holmes fans such as myself – mentions of Mycroft, carriage chases, and
the rest. And yet, this mystery never really gets going properly.
There's nothing much wrong with it – the dialogue, descriptions, and
plotting are all fine – but that's all they are. There's nothing that
lifts it up into the realms where I'd be falling over myself to
recommend it to you. Admittedly, it's probably not being helped by the
fact that I read another book in the same series immediately after it
which was far superior – the Man From Hell, mentioned below – but even
before I'd read that book, this one was never likely to stick in my
mind for very long.
It's also an extremely slight book – while it weighs in at about 200
pages overall, only 110 or so of them are the 'main' plot, with a few
more being the foreword, introduction and afterword. Meanwhile, 60 or
so are devoted to notes on the book tying the events to actual history
and to Sherlockian studies, and to a preview of another book in the
series. This is all very worthy, but if anything, just adds to the
feeling that it was written as an exercise in tying together two
famous names, rather than as a book in its own right.
Really, that's my main problem with the story. It's not bad by any
means – the two main characters of Sherlock and Teddy are captured
rather well, especially some of the expected scenes in which Holmes
dazzles new acquaintances by telling them many facts about themselves.
But compared to the vast amount of Holmes literature out there, and
the even more massive field of general detective novels, it's very
hard to direct you to this above many more superior books.
Having said that, if you're such a fan of Holmes that you want to read
anything he features in, I wouldn't actively dissuade you from this
one.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag.
Further Reading: Anyone interested in Sherlock may be more tempted by
the superb non-fiction book [[Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections
Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
by Alistair Duncan]]. If you're more interested in crime fiction set
around the turn of the 20th century than just in Holmes, I'd suggest
taking a look at Jed Rubenfeld's excellent [[The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld|The Interpretation of Murder]], which sees Sigmund Freud turn detective in 1909 New York.
Finally, if I can get away with three recommendations here, I absolutely loved [[The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Man From Hell by Barie Roberts|Sherlock Holmes and the Man From Hell]] by Barrie Roberts, in the same series as this novel.
{{amazontext|amazon=1848565097}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=7094882}}
{{commenthead}}
