In GThe Lions Mane Holmes is OLD! It is really stressful to see your favorite characters grow old. Then in one of the stories Watson get shot! Thankfully he doesn't die! but OMG! I was hyperventilating! I am so fond of both of them that if one of them, died I would like die too!
I would recommend this to anyone who likes mystery stories or loves both Holmes and Watson!

first book of 2025 and so sad that i’m done with every ACD sherlock holmes :’(

this one was unique because of a few stories in SHERLOCK’s pov (amazing), and an adventurous mix of murder, money trails, confessional stories, missing items, and more.

can’t wait to forget everything so i can read all of these books all over again in a few years <3

L'avventura del cliente illustre: 2*
L'avventura del soldato sbiancato: 3.5*
L'avventura del diamante giallo: 2.5*
L'avventura dei Three Gables: 3.5*
L'avventura del vampiro del Sussex: 5*
L'avventura dei tre Garrideb: 4.5*
L'enigma di Thor Bridge: 4*
L'avventura dell'uomo che camminava a quattro zampe: 4*
L'avventura della Criniera di Leone: 5*
L'avventura dell'inquilina velata: 3*
L'avventura di Shoscombe Old Place: 2*
L'avventura della portabandiera in pensione: 3.5*
TOT. 42.5:12 = 3.5*

As usual some of the short stories were a tad predictable but overall they were all quite entertaining. I liked the more modern setting of the early 1900s compared to the late 1800s of earlier stories, it made things seem a bit more refreshing.

One thing that I really disliked about the series was Sherlock's claim that more or less every case was the most complex or most interesting he'd ever come across, it just made me roll my eyes. Also, the repetition of words throughout was irritating to read, the word 'singular' was used way too much.

All in all, I'm glad I've finally finished with the Sherlock series, I was getting rather tired of the formulaic way Sherlock/Watson investigated their cases.

El último de los libros de Sherlock Holmes escritos por su creador. Una interesante colección de relatos que incluso nos permite ver a un Holmes, ya jubilado y alejado de Watson, resolviendo su ¿Ultimo? caso.

Remarcaria dentro de la colección, la misteriosa "El vampiro de Sussex", la inquietante "los tres Gabletes y la divertidisima "Los tres Garrideb"

Como el resto de colecciones de relatos y novelas de Holmes, una delicia difícil de superar. Echaré mucho de menos leer nuevas historias cada verano, pero para superarlo, comenzaremos con las novelas del profesor Chellenger :D

I'm so sad

The ninth and final volume of the Sherlock Holmes canon is once again a collection of short stories; the fifth collection. Although some of the stories are actually really good, by this stage Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has become formulaic in his approach and there is a distinct much-of-a-muchness about the stories; which is a shame. The short story that gave the previous collection its title – His Last Bow – is the last of all the stories in terms of chronology and would have made a fitting finale to the phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes. (Conan Doyle recognises that this must be the end in the preface to this collection by begging the Sherlockians to allow him to let his creation fade away!) Although there are some great short stories in the later volumes, they tend to be concentrated in the earlier volumes, and the four novels are even better still.

Enough Is Enough!

At least, this is what Arthur Conan Doyle himself must have felt when he published The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, a collection of twelve stories that were written between 1921 and 1927 mostly for the Strand Magazine and Liberty. In the preface to this collection, we find the author express his firm resolution to have done with Holmes and to finally let him go the way of all flesh in order to dedicate his time and power to other literary projects. He even seems to regret having once given in to the public’s desire for more of the mastermind’s adventures and having allowed his resurrection after his deadly struggle with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls and he stresses that another revival of his long-lived creation will be out of the question.

Here is a quick overview of the twelve individual stories – spoiler-free:

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone: This is a rather unusual adventure in that we do not see so much of Holmes’s skills of reasoning and deduction but are treated to a rather stale coup de théâtre at the end. Holmes basically has an entire case against the dangerous criminal Count Negretto Sylvius, who has stolen a famous jewel, the eponymous Mazarin Stone, with the help of a rather simple-minded accomplice, but he does not know where the jewel is hidden. In order to find this out, he meets the count face to face and sets him a psychological trap. – Since Watson does not play a major role in this adventure, we have here one of two tales that are written in the perspective of the omniscient narrator, and while the story itself is not really very mysterious, it has at least a suspenseful encounter between master criminal and master sleuth on offer and shows Holmes at his best in terms of wry humour, as when he says, shortly after divulging to Watson that he expects to be murdered, ”’[…] But we may be comfortable in the meantime, may we not? Is alcohol permitted? […]’” Holmes also excels as a master of disguise in this story, and the red herring he uses will be familiar to the avid reader from the 1903 Adventure of the Empty House.

The Problem of Thor Bridge: This is a murder case that seems to be very clear against the governess Miss Dunbar, whose mistress is found shot on a bridge, with a note in her clenched hand showing that she had an appointment in that very place with Miss Dunbar. The police also find a pistol in the governess’s wardrobe – but her employer entreats Holmes to prove the young woman’s innocence. Holmes is disgusted with his client’s morals but he still agrees to help because he believes in Miss Dunbar’s innocence, and he soon unravels an extremely sophisticated murder riddle. – Not only is the story extremely clever, but in its introduction we also learn something we might never have surmised, namely that Holmes, for all his astuteness, also has to look back on a number of cases he actually failed to solve – cases which are so mysterious that they border on the supernatural. Especially one of them did whet my curiosity, the one of ”Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a match box in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.” Boy, Mr. Doyle certainly had a deft hand at throwing his readers hints to stories he had never written and at making them ardently wish he had! This odd reference may also serve to remind you that Doyle was the author of several gripping tales of the supernatural.

In The Adventure of the Creeping Man Holmes and Watson are called for help by the private secretary (and future son-in-law) of Professor Presbury because that eminent and learned man, always a bit on the irascible side, has started to behave very strangely of late. To give an example, he was surprised creeping on all fours by his secretary – yes, you are reading right! Is he under the influence of some strange drug? And if so, why did his own dog repeatedly attack him? – If pressed upon to select the worst Sherlock Holmes story ever, I’d lay my finger on this selfsame tale for the same reason as Watson, who, at one point of this half-baked and simply ludicrous yarn, cries out, ”’Surely, Holmes, this is a little far-fetched’”.

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire may sound like another story in which the author goes beyond the limits of likelihood in a sensationalist desire to impress his readers, but it is actually a decent little family mystery, which starts when an old acquaintance of Watson’s asks the detective’s help after finding that his Peruvian wife has repeatedly attacked her stepson and been caught in the act of sucking blood from her own baby’s neck. Its introduction gives yet another example of how Doyle teased his readers’ imagination by casually mentioning cases that have yet to be recorded as when Holmes talks of the Matilda Briggs, ”’a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.’” I can’t speak for the world, but as to myself, I’d say, Here I am, and fully prepared!

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs is yet another clever and entertaining story although it has to be confessed that, strictly speaking, Doyle rehashes the plot of one of his earliest Holmes cases, albeit to some good effect. Holmes is supposed to track down a third bearer of the unusual name of Garrideb so that a will promising 5 million dollars to each of the three Garridebs can be properly executed. Too good to be true?

In The Illustrous Client Holmes pits his strength against yet another arch-villain of the Moriarty style, and this time it is an Austrian nobleman, the Baron Adelbert Gruber, who has dedicated his life to crime without sullying his own hands too notably. Holmes’s task is to provide material that will prevent a young infatuated lady from giving her hand in marriage to the Baron, who has already killed his first wife. What follows is a dramatic tug-of-war between the detective and the scoundrel, but experienced readers of the canon might feel that Charles Augustus Milverton is looking on from around the corner.

The greatest mystery lying in wait for the reader of The Adventure of the Three Gables is probably the question why the story came to be named The Adventure of the Three Gables. The house in which Holmes’s client lives does happen to have three gables, but none of these gables plays any role in the story, and all we get is a burglary tale with a rash and dissatisfying ending. Easily one of the lamest stories in the entire canon.

A similar thing can be said about The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier, where Holmes has to find out the real reason why a young man and former soldier should be hidden from the world by his family and all the world be told that the young man is travelling through Europe. Holmes has little to go by and from that little he draws the most remarkable and far-reaching conclusions. What makes the story really disappointing is the absence of Dr. Watson, a melancholy fact that deprives the story of what makes Holmes tales so enjoyable, namely the interaction between those two friends. To make matters even worse, Holmes, who takes on the role of narrator here, starts with a rather disparaging and, one hopes, out-of-character remark about his loyal companion: ”The ideas of my friend Watson, though limited, are exceedingly pertinacious.” This thankless arrogance made a very bad starting-point into the tale for me.

The next story is set in 1907 and it is also told by Holmes himself, who has now withdrawn from active life and taken up beekeeping on the Sussex seaside. When I first read The Lion’s Mane, the surprise ending made me rank it among my favourite Holmes stories, but my recent re-reading showed that the absence of Watson is sorely felt: One has the impression that the visit to the family of the dead man’s love interest just serves the purpose of filler and that the tale is eked out to postpone the solution for as long as the author deems it necessary to make a tale out of a good idea, which is, however, poorly executed.

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman has the making of a good tale in it – Holmes is asked to look into the elopement of a retired colourman’s wife with her neighbour and part of her husband’s savings –, but there is one major point in this story, not to be given away here, which just does not sit straight with me.

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger begins with yet another of those famous Doyle teasers, namely Watson’s threat to disclose the ”whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant” and then gives us a dramatic yarn about a wild circus lion, which is entertaining as a story but gives Holmes no opportunity to display his skills.

Luckily, the last tale in this collection, The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, – as far as I know, it was also the tale with the latest publication date, shows Doyle return to his old standards and – if you want – tricks, in giving us an intricate case about the irascible Sir Robert and his sister, who seem to have fallen out with each other, which leads the brother into a series of rather unusual actions. In this affair, Holmes and Watson are back on deck in their full glory.

All in all, one can say that the stories in this volume tend to be played more for effect than to give insight into Holmes’s faculties of reasoning and drawing his conclusions, which, in some cases, is quite annoying. One can also surmise that Doyle was struggling for new forms of telling these stories, albeit with limited success. I also had the impression that Watson himself changed from a man of normal mental faculties, but one still of value to his partner, to a mere admirer and idolater, as becomes obvious in the following quotation:

“He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. […] I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He liked to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me – many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead – but none the less, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject. […] Such was my humble role in our alliance.”

One passage is extremely gushing in this context, and it occurs after Holmes shows some serious concern when Watson receives a gunshot wound during one of their explorations. Here Watson gushes forth:

”It was worth a wound – it was worth many wounds – to know the depth of loyalty and love which like behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking.”

One might definitely ask what is wrong with Watson and why he more and more begins to hide his light under a bushel: Holmes does not appear any the greater, the smaller Watson makes himself – but the detective’s fascination is derived from his ability to evaluate the clues he collects in the course of an examination. Unluckily, some of the stories in this collection give our sleuth little opportunity to do this.

I enjoyed this collection more than those in His Last Bow. My favourite being The Adventure of the Lion's Mane.

A Rather Clever Collection
7 July 2017 (Great Australian Bight)

tWell, that was annoying. I had finished writing my review of the Case-book last night while I was sitting on the plane, saved it to my external harddrive, packed up my bag and then headed off to my parent's house. When I got there I suddenly discovered that my external harddrive was missing. Fortunately I had backed the harddrive up on my desktop at home, however I hope that the harddrive basically disappears as opposed to ending up in the hands of some Nigerian Prince.

tWhat it also means is that I pretty much have to write this review again from scratch, and attempt to remember what it was that I said in the previous review. Oh well, that probably isn't as much of a problem as it could have been, though I do hope that the hard drive vanishes for good (that would be the better outcome). So, here I am, sitting once again on a plane flying at 30,000 feet over the Great Australian Bight heading to what is probably one of the, if not the, most remote cities in the entire world – Perth – namely because I've never actually been to Perth, and also because I watch to go and watch my football team lose (which is most likely what is going to happen because the away teams do tend to lose in Perth).

tAnyway, enough of that because you probably want to know more about this book as opposed to my current location and my immediate plans, so I guess on with the review. Personally, I found this book somewhat more enjoyable than some of the other Holmsian collections, in particular the previous two. It felt as if Doyle had gone back to his original style as opposed to just a collection of murder mysteries – these stories seem to be more like puzzles than anything else. Sure, there were a couple of murders, but just because somebody died doesn't necessarily mean that they were killed by another human being.

tThe collection itself was interesting, and did seem to work more like a guessing game, though of course, as with Doyle's other works, it generally turns out that there is something that Holmes knows that he isn't letting on so it isn't necessarily possible to actually work out the solution to the puzzle. However, we do have some quite interesting stories, such as the one where an American with a rather odd name appears and claims that if he can find two other people with the same last name that he has then they would all inherit a rather expensive piece of property. This story actually reminded me a lot of the Redheaded League, which I also found to be quite clever. This is the thing that I enjoy about some of Doyle's stories – they don't necessarily involve solving a murder.

tWith some of the other stories, you have this puzzle regarding a professor, wearing a trench coat and covered in some nasty bruises, dying all of the sudden. You also have an adventure where Holmes is asked to basically stop this woman from marrying what appears to be a rather suspicious character, though this particular character is actually quite well connected. The problem is that she is only one of a long list of partners who all end up in a rather sticky position. Also, conving somebody not to marry somebody with whom they are smitten with is a challenge in and of itself. Once again, we don't have a murder, and we even have poor Holmes being arrested, though the charges basically don't end up sticking.

tLike the previous collection, these stories aren't in chronological order, and one of them isn't even written by Watson (it is narrated by Holmes). As we remember from Volume 3, Holmes retired to tend bees, so what we are seeing now are casefiles that were closed, but for some reason or another kept hidden (or simply may not have been interesting enough to publish with the previous collections). Some of the stories occur after Holmes retires, some of them before. In fact it is even suggested that a couple are set after World War I (remember that Holmes' last case involved busting open a German spy ring).

tSo, I can now add the entire Sherlock Holmes stories to my have-read list, though a part of me is a bit sad that it has now come to an end and the books returned to my father. However, maybe, someday in the future, I'll crack open the case books again simply to revisit the stories, particularly stories that I quite enjoyed. Oh, and before I forget, I should mention that in one of the stories we even meet Holmes' rival – not nemesis as in the case of Doctor Moriatry, but rather another consulting detective who proves to be just as capable as Sherlock Holmes.

kocham yaoi

I'm glad he went for one more round. I liked all of these better than the ones in His Last Bow.

Because I’m lazy, I’m copying and pasting all my mini-reviews for this book instead of writing a comprehensive review. I will hopefully put up a review of The Complete Sherlock Holmes HERE sometime soon.

– – –

December 18, 2018 –

88.0% ““The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” — Holmes is hired by an anonymous client (who is probably the King) to prevent the marriage of a dear friend’s daughter to a notorious man who is widely believed to have murdered his last wife, among many other transgressions. I liked this one quite a lot, great mystery, Watson has a lot to do, great villain. — 4.5/5 stars”

December 19, 2018 –

89.0% ““The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” — Another one of the few narrated by Holmes himself, and this one was written because Watson goaded Holmes to “Try it yourself!” because of excessive criticism of Watson’s methods. Holmes doesn’t do much, but it has a happy ending, and is suitably creepy in places. — 4/5 stars”

December 20, 2018 –

90.0% ““The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” — One of only two Holmes stories told in the third person, to hide a trick. It was okay, but I missed Watson’s voice. Holmes does get extra tricksy here, though, so that’s fun. — 3.5/5 stars”

December 20, 2018 –

91.0% ““The Adventure of the Three Gables” — The mystery here was okay, although I think Holmes was too easy on the perpetrator there at the end. But this one really has not aged well. It’s pretty racist. — 3/5 stars”

December 20, 2018 –

92.0% ““The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” — This one was wacky and I was thoroughly enjoying it, until I figured out what was going on, that is. I’m so used to not being able to do that, it was a little disappointing when I did. But seriously: wacky. — 4/5 stars”

December 23, 2018 –

93.0% ““The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” — I was really digging this until I realized that Conan Doyle had already used this same plot structure in two other stories (he used it in “The Red-Headed League” and “The Stockbroker’s Clerk”). Still, this was my favorite of those three. Holmes and Watson have a sweet moment at the end. Friendship <3 — 4/5 stars”

December 25, 2018 –

95.0% ““The Problem of Thor Bridge” — Pretty good one. The Victorian conception of foreign women is messed up, though. Especially where Central and South America were concerned. This isn’t really new information though, and it’s the third or fourth of these stories to feature a woman of “foreign temperament”. — 3.5/5 stars”

December 26, 2018 –

96.0% ““The Adventure of the Creeping Man” — This was fun to read but it was ultimately ridiculous, the ending unsatisfying. It’s basically sci-fi, and not the realism we normally associate with Holmes stories. It was probably written about the time ACD started believing in fairies. Still, it’s got some great lines (“Come at once if convenient — if inconvenient come all the same. S. H.”) — 3/5 stars”

December 26, 2018 –

97.0% ““The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane” — The final of three stories narrated by Holmes instead of Watson, and this one post-retirement! A man drops dead right in front of Holmes, so of course he has to investigate. The beginning and end were good, but the middle lacked the magic. — 3.5/5 stars”



December 27, 2018 –

98.0% ““The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger” — Holmes and Watson don’t really do anything but listen to a story, but it’s an interesting one at least. — 3.5/5 stars"

December 27, 2018 –

99.0% ““The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place” — Holmes and Watson investigate a man who has been doing very odd and out of character things. Good, but not great. — 3.5/5 stars”

December 27, 2018 –

100.0% ““The Adventure of the Retired Colourman” — A nice one to end on. Holmes doing actual detection, getting Watson mixed up in it unbeknownst to him. Trickery. — 4/5 stars

– – –

And with that, I’m officially done with The Complete Sherlock Holmes. I feel accomplished.