bookwomble's review against another edition
3.0
I like to get something Holmesian each Christmas, and this was 2011's offering.
Being a fictionalised account of the collaboration between [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1289836561p2/2448.jpg] and [a:Bertram Fletcher Robinson|2934523|Bertram Fletcher Robinson|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] on [b:The Hound of the Baskervilles|8921|The Hound of the Baskervilles|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311281165s/8921.jpg|3311984], I did wonder as I read through quite how much was real and how much fiction. Fortunately, O'Connell provides an Afterword in which all is clarified.
So, an interesting book, which gets better in its second half, when Doyle and Robinson are scouting locations for The Hound in Dartmoor, Robinson's childhood home, and when the creative and personal tensions between them start to surface.
I liked the section dealing with Doyle's (lamentable) dabbling in Spiritualism, and his gullibility and self-deceit as presented in this book seems to be true to the accounts I've read in a couple of biographies.
O'Connell has made Robinson into an interestingly flawed character, which he states in the Afterword is probably far from the truth, but which carries the story forward.
A relatively quick read in a nicely bound volume.
Being a fictionalised account of the collaboration between [a:Arthur Conan Doyle|2448|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1289836561p2/2448.jpg] and [a:Bertram Fletcher Robinson|2934523|Bertram Fletcher Robinson|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] on [b:The Hound of the Baskervilles|8921|The Hound of the Baskervilles|Arthur Conan Doyle|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311281165s/8921.jpg|3311984], I did wonder as I read through quite how much was real and how much fiction. Fortunately, O'Connell provides an Afterword in which all is clarified.
So, an interesting book, which gets better in its second half, when Doyle and Robinson are scouting locations for The Hound in Dartmoor, Robinson's childhood home, and when the creative and personal tensions between them start to surface.
I liked the section dealing with Doyle's (lamentable) dabbling in Spiritualism, and his gullibility and self-deceit as presented in this book seems to be true to the accounts I've read in a couple of biographies.
O'Connell has made Robinson into an interestingly flawed character, which he states in the Afterword is probably far from the truth, but which carries the story forward.
A relatively quick read in a nicely bound volume.
in_libris_speramus's review against another edition
2.0
Ended abruptly. I am not impressed by the characterizations of anyone in the story, and really feel that this could have been fleshed out more. I was hoping for more mystery and intrigue, but instead this felt like a burn-book-cum-dear-diary.
More...