Sherlock Holmes - The Spirit Box by George Mann
| Sherlock Holmes - The Spirit Box by George Mann | |
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| Category: Crime (Historical) | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A WWI-based return to work for Holmes and Watson, but one where the style overweighs the slight content. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Maybe |
| Pages: 336 | Date: August 2014 |
| Publisher: Titan Books | |
| ISBN: 9781781160022 | |
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In the London of World War One, there is a man amongst the masses cowering from the nightly Zeppelin raids who knows death a lot more than many. He is grieving for his nephew, lost to the killing fields of France; he is pining for his wife, evacuated to the country; and he is both grieving and pining for a past where he was more active, more demonstrably brave and verifiably useful – a past whose main constituent part has also gone to the countryside, to be a beekeeper near Brighton. That man is Dr Watson, and the other, of course, is Sherlock Holmes. Here they're reunited at the behest of Mycroft, for three individual deaths provide a thorn in the side of his secret operations, and only Holmes can pluck it out with his singular talents. But when the evidence in the case so often revolves around mysterious photographs claiming to be of people's souls, there is a hint that this new modern age is a step too far for the once-retired sleuthing friends.
This isn't exclusively a trip into the world of Conan Doyle for George Mann, for he also steps back in time in the company of his own creation – Victorian-era investigator of the unusual, Sir Maurice Newberry. The fact we get a bonus short story set in that world without other pre-formed characters is about the best thing in this book, for it shows to what great lengths and with what fabulous accuracy Mann has put a voice to Watson's writing style. There are churlish-seeming modern asides – I loved the one about Watson introducing Holmes as his associate, just because the latter always gets there first with the status the other way round – but on the whole, this is echt, kosher, the real thing.
Plus, of course, there is the spirit photography, and Mann clearly knows how much the supernatural impacted in Conan Doyle's own life and thinking. The book doesn't belabour this, nor indeed many of the things it can bring to the Holmesian universe – having read of them flying for the first time, it's pretty much par for the course to have Watson hating his time in speeding cars on the wartime London streets, and the setting and slight modernising of the world around the heroes is done very well.
Which is more than can be said of the plot. Several times it seemed just too slender. You're ten pages in and while it's been joyful for us to see the partnership rebuilt after Conan Doyle's definitive ending, all we've had by way of investigation is a recap of what we'd already been told. There's a much later instance of Watson being hard done by, and you can instantly guess where the next ten pages are going to go – and indeed they are very disposable for being so utterly predictable, however well written.
There is credit to the writing throughout, don't get me wrong. But it's style over substance. A couple of times too often Mann gets Holmes to instantaneously make surprising declarations about characters he has only just met, and therefore to explain his detective logic with the usual, Watson-baiting impertinence. And while that all smacks of authority and a close affinity with the original books and stories, here the plot doesn't warrant a full-length novel, and the cleverness of Mann/Holmes does not stretch to nearly the lengths of ACD/Holmes. In the realms of non-canonical Holmes stories, this one is not the worst by any stretch – it really carries the mood and nuances of the originals, but the reader should be prepared for finding a novella padded out to 200 pages. And while both Holmes brothers and their chronicler are said to have lost a little shape and spruceness over the years, their books need not have got quite so baggy at the same time.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy.
For a further, completely unexpected, look at a different Holmes (and then some) we recommend Shadowfall: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by Tracy Revels. You might also enjoy Art in the Blood: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure by Bonnie MacBird.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Sherlock Holmes - The Spirit Box by George Mann at Amazon.com.
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