#122
Title: The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Caleb Carr
Publisher: St. Martin's
Year: 2005
Genre: mystery, Holmesiana
340 pages
If you must read every modern Holmes tale, then you'll want to read this one. As a person who enjoys both classical and comtemporary Holmes, I found it slightly below "okay." While Carr (whose work I've enjoyed) hits the tone and language right, the narrative never quite gets off the ground. It's plodding and Holmes has no sparkle. The events almost hang together, but don't quite cohere. Holmes's conclusions often aren't based on facts known to the reader, making this a passive mystery. Holmes's speculations about supernatural phenomena are no less jarring simply because the anthology for which this was originally intended had ghosts and Holmes as its premise--it's a weak idea, not well-rooted in Holmes canon. Finally, perhaps I'm dense, but I don't know who the perhaps-Gaelic-speaking hunchback who runs off toward the end is (surely not the ghost of Rizzio; why would an Italian speak Gaelic?). Nor do I know why Watson and Holmes show so little interest in him. I had to struggle to finish this novel, which feels too long for its contents. I did enjoy the coincidence of reading two books in a row that both included discussion of the use of siege engines to fling plague-ridden bodies over the enemy's battlements, but that is not a sufficient reward for the difficulties this book presented.
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