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The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Back To Front Murder by Tim Major

1 review

elzmri's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Firstly, Major’s writing style is very much like Doyle’s original canon, which I thoroughly enjoyed as there are not many pastiche authors who can nail the original author’s techniques, but Major achieves just that in Back to Front Murder. At first I found Watson was presented as being very emotional and Holmes regularly makes him look a fool for his lack of deduction skills; while these are typical traits of Watson’s personality, I worried at first that this novel would exaggerate them to the point where Watson appears the bumbling buffoon that some previous Holmes adaptations have presented him as. However, especially by the end of the boom, I realise that this certainly wasn’t the case and I am glad to have stuck with it. I struggled a little with some of the scenes described in France, but that is more a reflection of my own lack of familiarity with the place names/ French lexis etc rather than a con on Major’s storytelling. I found that Holmes wasn’t as present in this narration as he is in other stories, and while I acknowledge that Watson is indeed the narrator who helps us as the readers piece together the musste dies to solve them alongside them, I found that Watson seemed to be at the forefront of trying to figure out the facts himself rather than Holmes guiding him regularly. I would like to point out that the final pages of the closing chapter made me smile; Major brilliantly describes Holmes’ behaviour at being proved wrong about ‘coincidences’ fit his character and ego excellently, and made me chuckle, and the subtle references to his gentle behaviour with the other characters adds a layer of humanity to his character, which I find many Holmes pastiches often get wrong by simply presenting him as a Spock-like cold, calculating machine.
Overall, the characters were believable, the mystery itself interesting but a bit bland at some points (I enjoy fast paced thriller-plots, so this is simply a personal preference) and the writing style was excellent. I would absolutely recommend this book to Holmes fans, and I hope Tim Major writes more in the future :)
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