A Desperate Ruse,
by Robert Underhill
Paper, $14.95
Readers of Robert Underhill’s
previous books will find this one significantly different, since this is a
period piece, located in London, England, in the late 1800s. It’s also
different in that it is centered around a quasi-historical character, the
famous detective Sherlock Holmes, creation of the Englishman Arthur Conan
Doyle.
In the Doyle story “A Study
in Scarlet,” the great detective is first introduced, along with his partner,
Doctor Watson, and Holmes’ brother, Mycroft. These three are the main characters, along with two police
detectives who work with Holmes to solve the mysteries that arise in Victorian
England.
Sherlock Holmes and his new
method of using “deductive reasoning” to solve crimes became immensely popular
in that period in England, and since then his popularity has spread all around
the world. For example, in the
past few years here in the U.S. there have been a new film and several TV
programs with him as the main character. The main feature of these exciting adventures, aside
from the use of deductive reasoning, is the relationship between the
emotionless, cerebral detective, his stolid, unimaginative doctor assistant,
and the two bumbling detectives who can’t find a clue even when it’s right in
front of their faces.
Doyle wrote many short
stories and novelettes featuring these characters. His creations became so popular that Londoners would line up
to get newly released stories, much as kids did recently when a new Harry
Potter adventure came out. In
fact, the character Holmes became so popular that when Doyle became tired of
writing about him and killed him off in what he intended as the “final”
Sherlock Holmes story, the furor was so great that Doyle had to bring his hero
back to life and write even more stories.
Now Robert Underhill, a
popular local mystery writer, has done something interesting and new with
Sherlock Holmes. Many authors have
written new Sherlock Holmes stories, but most have kept the familiar characters
and simply introduced a new mystery.
Underhill does the reverse. He makes a significant alteration in the
personality of each character and then re-tells the original story, observing
the changes that result. For instance, what if Holmes wasn’t as brilliant as
originally designed? What if the doctor was the imaginative one? What if the detectives weren’t bumbling
but rather intelligent police officers?
If these altered characters were to face the same mystery, for example,
“The Study in Scarlet,” would the mystery still be solved? Would the result be the same?
If you are not a Holmes
reader, you will still enjoy this Victorian period mystery. Perhaps it will
even lead you to delve into the Holmes stories written by the great writer
Arthur Conan Doyle. If, however, you are fortunate enough to be a Holmes
enthusiast already, you will be delighted to see how cleverly Underhill alters
the personal history of these characters and, as a result, how their motivation
changes. Then you’ll see how the
motivational changes affect the solving of the mystery. It’s almost as if it were written by a
psychiatrist!
Bruce Balas, June 2014
Omena resident Bruce Balas
is a long-time volunteer and bookstore angel at Dog Ears Books. He’s pulling
your leg (something he often does) with that last sentence of his: Robert Underhill,
as many of you (including Bruce) already know, is a retired psychiatrist.
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