Current Obsession: The Sherlockian

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore — Amazon.com

You probably know by now that I kind of like Sherlock Holmes and most anything that's related to it. I thought the movies were pretty darn good, and I think that the TV show is even better. I also read a bunch of the original stories and am still baffled by the brilliance of them all.

This book was actually assigned to us as one of a few options of books to read to write a report on for my english class at school. Generally every book on a list like that sucks. But not this list. Surprisingly there were quite a few good choices. I, of course, went with the one about Sherlock Holmes:

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective's next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning -- crowds sported black armbands in grief -- and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had "murdered" Holmes in "The Final Problem," he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.

Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he's about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world's leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold - using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories - who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

That's the summary of the book. Sounded good enough to me. And, being about half way through the book, I can truly say that this is a great read for anyone slightly interested in the tales of Sherlock Holmes. It's an incredibly interesting book, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

On a related note, the book is published by a relatively new publishing house called Twelve Books. They scout out what looks to them like the twelve best books that year, and publish only those. That's right. They're goal is to publish no more than twelve books a year. And The Sherlockian was one of them. That's gotta mean something good about the book, right?