Amazon.com Review
It might come as no surprise that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, after creating the first world-renowned fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, started to believe that he could solve real-life crimes. What is surprising is that Doyle was sometimes successful. While the muscular, mustachioed author and his thin, hawk-nosed character would never have been mistaken for one another, they did share an abhorrence for injustice. And Doyle's association as a student with a medical professor named Joseph Bell--who, through close observation, could deduce extraordinary amounts of information from his patients--gave him both a model for the brilliant Holmes and an appreciation for careful forensic methodology.
The True Crime Files of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle focuses on a couple of curious British cases, both involving men Doyle believed were innocent. The first, which drew Doyle's attention in 1906, involved a shy half-British, half-Indian lawyer named George Edalji, who'd allegedly penned threatening letters and mutilated animals. Police were dead set on Edalji's guilt, though the mutilations continued even after their suspect was jailed. The second case examined here--that of Oscar Slater, a German Jew and gambling-den operator convicted of bludgeoning an 82-year-old woman in 1908--excited Doyle's curiosity because of inconsistencies in the prosecution case and a general sense that Slater was framed.
Editor Stephen Hines has compiled Doyle's passionate writings about these criminal probes as well as myriad missives to the press and other background material. This accumulation of arcana will delight passionate Doyle fans, though it's probably too much for the average reader, who may be satisfied with Steven Womack's introductory synopsis. --J. Kingston Pierce
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Following the success of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle himself was much sought after as a consultant in real-life mysteries. Doyle never became fully involved in actual sleuthing, except for two cases. In campaigns that will remind readers of contemporary investigative efforts to free Death Row inmates, Doyle wrote a series of newspaper articles defending George Edalji, an East Indian believed to have performed animal sacrifices, and a book defending Glaswegian Oscar Slater, convicted of murdering his wife. The bulk of this volume consists of Doyle's journalistic campaign in the
Daily Telegraph on behalf of Edalji, whose case excited tremendous controversy (responses from the public and the Home Office are included). In the much shorter part 2, editor Hines presents excerpts from Doyle's treatise on the wrongful conviction of Oscar Slater. Edgar-winning author Steven Womack provides an insightful introduction to Doyle's life and these two cases. For Conan Doyle aficionados and scholarly true-crime buffs.
Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
