The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
"If ever I saw a murderer's mouth it was there-a cruel, hard gash in the face, compressed, inexorable, and terrible."One of the best lines I read in this book
INTRODUCTION:
The book I am going to write a review about is called The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes and it was written by Arthur Conan Doyle and was published between 1887-1927. this book was printed by the Collins Classic. There is only one edition of this book which was published in 2011. A little background o the author is provided when you initially read the book which contains his life journeys which include the journey to West Africa in 1895. Then in 1906, he suffered deaths and tragedies due to World War I which included his wife. The author also includes a little preface that tells how Sherlock Holmes has outlived his time and now it's time that he returns to the same place that other famous novels and characters of his time went and according to the author, this is the last book of the series.
SUMMARY:
This is a book that comprises around 12 short stories and every one has its own crazy and great plot twist but certain stories follow a kinda straight pattern and there is no big plot twist involved like in the first story, Spoiler Alert: which was to stop a wedding between a beautiful, young, naive girl from marrying a murderer of women who the girl considers as her sweetheart. Many secondary characters come across different stories but the 2 main characters are Sherlock Holmes, a detective in England, and his trusty friend Watson a doctor by profession. In all 12 stories there is always one main theme followed every bad guy/criminal no matter how much they try since they are human will make a mistake and it will be costly to them but in some of these stories this theme is not followed like in story 2, Spoiler Alert: there was no criminal only a father who wanted to hide his son from the rest of the world because he thought that his son had gotten leprosy from his trip to Africa(It turns out he didn't have leprosy at all). The book is part of a series of around 12 books but since almost all of these books are short stories so there is no need to read the other ones to understand this one.
GENRE:
The genre of this book is mainly mystery and I have read quite a lot of books on the genre of mystery so I know for a fact that this book ranks very high amount those must-read mystery genre books. The minute I saw this book at the book fair I had very high expectations of it since it is one of the classics and I have to admit, it was exactly as I expected. Actually, It was better than what I was expecting, I was expecting a half children's sorta book but gotta admit that the villains in these stories are very realistic and very morbid.
CHARACTERS:
I cared very much for the characters especially Watson and a little about Sherlock, I cared so much for Watson because, in certain stories in this book, he proves to the audience that he is a friend to good old Sherlock and he is willing to take a shot for him. Since these were all short stories so character development is minimal but somewhere at the end of every story you see Sherlock learning something new and Watson also learning something new about the world that he did not know.
PLOT AND THEME:
Every story was gripping story till the end, especially in moments when things heated up, the danger that was feared is present face to face and they either have to run or either have to stay and fight. Some specific moments include story 3, Spoiler Alert: In which Sherlock is charged by the Count to find the long-lost Mazarin stone and the end gripped me how it turned out to be somewhere completely unexpected. The theme of every story was that the criminal or thief will make some mistake from the smallest to the biggest of biggest in either the confinement of his own home or out in the streets publicly and he will get caught as expressed above this theme was not always followed by the stories. The ending of every story was satisfying in either solving the crime and helping the people involved in the crime or solving every plot hole there was in the story but not catching the actual criminal since he either fled away or died due to some natural causes, Spoiler Alert: In one of the stories the criminal is a fish so they had to kill the fish very carefully. At the end of every story, every plothole was filled and no consistencies in any of the stories were detected by me because most of the stories went in a smooth undisturbed fashion.
PACING:
In some stories, we see that the stories have been dragged just a tiny bit but I consider that it was important to drag them because the ending was so worth it and if the readers are asking that did the story at any point recover itself then yeah sure it recovered itself at the end where the drag seemed like necessary information to give to the reader.
PROSE:
The author had a very detailed writing style when he wrote this book and since it was a dark time at the time this book was written so the villains in it are darker than in any other Sherlock Holmes book. The author tells the scenario of the room where Sherlock stays, and where Sherlock goes with Watson, all those scenarios are portrayed with great skill and excellence. He also likes to keep the reader informed about every detail going on in the main character's personality and detective life, how they live, what they eat, etc. The author's voice as explained above was very compelling which made my interest remain sustained from the start of the book to the end of it.
IMPACT IT HAD ON ME:
My primary emotion of my on finishing this book was mixed, I was thrilled that I read such a good book and I was excited that I read the whole book in around 2 sittings but I was kinda sad that the book had only 12 stories in it, I mean this kind of book must contain more stories in it and overall I was happy I picked this book up and read it.
MY RECOMMENDATION:
I would recommend this book to other people because this is a well-written beautifully drawn mystery book which consists of 12 stories that are written with great enthusiasm and attention to detail by the author. In every story, there is exposure to the creative sides of both the main characters without changing the individual personality of those characters. In every story, there has been shown the purpose of the crime committed and what drove them to commit the crime with some excellent backstories of the criminals and their past. It also portrays some of the man's vilest feelings which include jealousy, lust, desire, and greed, and how it takes humans and turns them into these monsters probably if real monsters from imagination came and saw them they would be scared beyond their senses. The author also portrayed the friendship and support that the 2 gentlemen gave to each other and how it evolved into one of the best mystery/crime-fighting duos probably in the history of crime-fighting duos.
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