Sherlock Holmes and the Real Thing
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson delve into the world of art forgery in this new historical mystery from the author of Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell.
London, 189–: The great city is brought to a standstill by a series of blizzards and Sherlock Holmes is bored to distraction. It would take a miracle to bring a case to the detective’s door. . .
What arrives is not promising: a landlady who complains her artist tenant is behind on rent. Not exactly the miracle for which Holmes was hoping. But, next thing you know, there are several corpses and Sherlock Holmes and his biographer, John H. Watson, MD, find themselves drawn into one of the most bizarre cases of the great detective’s career. And into the cutthroat big business of Art, where chicanery and mendacity (and cut throats) proliferate.
What makes a work of art worth killing for? Is it the artist, his mistress, his dealer, or his blackmailer? The cast of characters is large. But are they perpetrators, accomplices, or victims? And just who is Juliet Packwood, with whom Watson has become infatuated?
Oh, and there’s one other problem: Is this a genuine Holmes case or a clever forgery? Is this the real thing?
If you can’t tell the difference, what is the difference?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
If Meyer's sterling seventh Holmes pastiche (after Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell) is, as he suggests in the acknowledgments, his last, he ends on a high note, serving up his best revamp of the Conan Doyle canon in years. Lady Glendenning, owner of many London properties, is referred to Baker Street by Scotland Yard after her usually reliable tenant, portrait artist Rupert Milestone, vanishes with three months of unpaid rent to his name. When Holmes and Watson accompany Lady Glendenning to Rupert's residence, the sleuths spot several oddities, including "a kiln with no potting wheel or ceramics, an unfinished Venetian cityscape... an oddly situated portrait of the artist as a young man," and blood. Their suspicions of foul play are validated when a male corpse is found nearby, gruesomely concealed inside a snowman, and three other dead bodies promptly turn up. Meyer avoids some of the pitfalls of his previous Holmes outings, firmly rooting the plot in Holmes's investigative acumen instead of his physical derring-do, and he packs the action with devilish surprises. Baker Street regulars will be thrilled.
