Italian Secretary [Hardcover]

Caleb Carr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2005

Mycroft Holmes, charged with ensuring the personal safety of Queen Victoria, calls on his brother for help when a number of attempts have been made on her life and when two unexplained deaths occur amongst the staff at her Scottish residencies. Accompanied by Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes goes north by train, examining the few facts Mycroft has been able to cryptically supply. To Watson's bafflement he is sure there is a link between these deaths and the murder in the old royal apartments at Holyrood of the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots: a killing which left a bloodstain that daily refreshes itself and in a room where voices can be heard in the darkest hours of the night. Can Holmes's extraordinary deductive powers solve the historical crime as well as the contemporary one? An original, beautifully crafted mystery story which is also a respectful homage to the master of the whodunnit.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Although Sherlock Holmes categorically dismissed, in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," supernatural explanations for corporeal crimes ("This Agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. ... No ghosts need apply"), one of the most popular among Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes tales is The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), in which the fate of a Devonshire family supposedly hangs on the savage appetites of an apparitional beast. More than a century later, in The Italian Secretary, Caleb Carr again presents the hawk-faced consulting detective with a yarn woven of paranormal plot threads, the mystery this time rooted in the fatal 16th-century stabbing of David Rizzio, a music teacher and confidant to Mary, Queen of Scots.

For Holmes and his affable annalist, Dr. John Watson, this spirited escapade begins sometime in the late 19th century with their receipt, in London, of an encrypted telegram from Sherlock's eccentric elder brother, Mycroft, "a senior but anonymous government official." It summons them to Edinburgh, Scotland, where architect Sir Alistair Sinclair and his foreman, Dennis McKay, have been slain in the midst of rehabilitating the medieval west tower of the Royal Palace of Holyrood--the very wing where Queen Mary had lived, and where Rizzio had met his brutal, politically motivated end. Mycroft fears these murders portend new threats against Britain's present monarch--the elderly Queen Victoria, who infrequently lodges at the palace--by a known assassin, perhaps in nefarious league with the German Kaiser. En route north, Holmes and Watson are menaced aboard their train by a red-bearded bomb thrower (supposedly a rabid Scots nationalist), only to discover that still greater dangers await them, and others, at Holyroodhouse. The plaintive drone of a weeping woman, cruelly punctured and shattered corpses, a pool of blood "that never dries," and a disembodied Italian voice with unexpected musical tastes all imply the wrath of wraiths behind recent atrocities. But Holmes and Watson deduce that greed, rather than ghosts, may be to blame.

Carr, who earned renown with his historical mysteries, The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997), apparently intended The Italian Secretary to be a short story; however, he couldn't stop writing. The result is a fleet-footed, atmospherically gothic, and often amusing Holmes tale (with an exposition scene in Watson's bed chamber that’s truly priceless), but one that makes scant attempt to enhance our understanding of Conan Doyle's characters--a less ambitious undertaking, in that respect, than Mitch Cullin's concurrently published A Slight Trick of the Mind. And while Carr displays a gift here for adopting another author's literary techniques, it is really his own style and series players that his fans are waiting to see more of in the future. --J. Kingston Pierce --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Writing a Sherlock Holmes tale is, for popular writers, equivalent to playing Hamlet for male actors: a challenge that few refuse and many regret. Bestselling author Carr (The Angel of Darkness, etc.) acquits himself with honor, though not high honors, in this short novel that pits Holmes, Watson and Mycroft Holmes against conspirators at Queen Victoria's Royal Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh, Scotland. When the men are killed at Holyrood in a fashion similar to the slaying centuries before of David Rizzio, an Italian confidant of Mary, Queen of Scots, Mycroft, who is Victoria's head of intelligence, calls upon his brother and Watson to help solve the mystery. Are the killings the work of Scottish nationalists? Or perhaps the sign of a restless ghost? From the latter question, and the novel's primary setting of the dank castle, emanates a well-drawn atmosphere of gloom that makes this story a nice companion to The Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes fans and scholars should be pleased with this novel, which generally hews to "the Canon" (unlike, say, Nicholas Meyer's Seven-Per-Cent Solution) and reflects a deep knowledge and understanding of Holmesiana, but the primary base for this novel will be, of course, Carr fans, who won't be quite as thrilled—for while the novel captivates, it matches neither of Carr's previous megasellers in plot invention or depth of character. Still, this should hit bestsellers lists, though not in a major way. (May 10).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co; 3rd edition (August 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316730831
• ISBN-13: 978-0316730839
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,115,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

93 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Any Truth is Better Than Indefinite Doubt, April 19, 2005

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (Hardcover)

So said Sherlock Holmes in The Yellow Face. Any indefinite doubt I had about Caleb Carr's ability to craft a credible and very enjoyable Sherlock Holmes adventure was dispelled in the first few pages.

I have read and enjoyed Carr's earlier fiction, The Alienist and The Angel of Darkness. One of the hallmarks of both books was Carr's ability to create a seemingly auhentic picture of life in 19th-century New York. He also created a wonderful pair of characters in Dr. Lazlo Kreizler and his trusted comrade John Schuyler Moore. However, Carr faced two hurdles in writing the Italian Secretary. He had to recreate the atmosphere of Victorian-era Scotland, a region he was probably not as intimately familiar with as New York City. Further, while Kreizler and Moore sprung solely from Carr's imagination, here Carr had to find authentic voices for the esteemed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, whose characterization by Arthur Conan Doyle must be fixed firmly in the imagination of anyone who has ever read the original Holmes tales. That is no easy task.

I have read virtually all of Conan Doyle's work but admit that I cannot claim as much expertise as devoted Baker Street Irregulars or other followers of Holmes. However, this amateur thinks Carr has done a terrific job replicating their original voices. It sound like Holmes and Watson to me.

The plot line is set out in detail in the product description and I won't go on at length about the plot or discuss any of the many twists and turns along the way. I did like the way Carr threw Sherlock's brother Mycroft into the story. Carr does an excellent job describing the petty sibling rivalries that must affect even the most accomplished of brothers.

Carr does a very good job of revealing bits and pieces of the mystery every few pages. The story is fast-paced and the many twists and turns in the story left me continually wanting to read just one more chapter before I put the book down for the evening. For me, this is the mark of good adventure tale.

In an afterword. Jon Lellenberg, the U.S. representative of the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, suggests that Carr write a new story in which Holmes and Watson meet up with Carr's Kreizler and Moore. I do hope Carr takes a stab at this.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in "The Man With the Twisted Lip" that "a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so." Carr has done a marvelous job in chronicling the further adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This is a book that will be enjoyed by fans of both Carr and Conan-Doyle as well as by readers who simply like a fast-paced, well written yarn.

48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To Scotland, Watson!!!, April 23, 2005

By 

Dash Manchette - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (Hardcover)

Being familiar both with the Sherlock Holmes tales and the fiction of Caleb Carr, I approached this book with interest. The result was a worthwhile read as Carr sends Holmes and Watson off to investigate murder and intrigue in Scotland.

As a Caleb Carr novel, THE ITALIAN SECRETARY is quite good. The book is exciting and the plot holds the reader's interest. Carr greatly expands the character of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother, who has a special though vaguely defined relationship with the queen. Mycroft calls upon his brother and Watson to investigate murders that may call the queen's safety into question.

As a Sherlock Holmes story, the result is a bit weaker. Carr captures the relationship between Holmes and Watson very well. His portrayal of their individual personalities is fairly good though just slightly off. This does not disrupt the story, however, and merely serves to remind us that Carr is not a clone of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Carr's weak spot is that his portrayal of Holmes' logic is not as tight as one might have hoped. Although some clues are presented to the reader, they are tied together far more loosely than in the original stories. Although Doyle himself would sometimes have Holmes make inferential leaps, those times stood out starkly as the exceptions to the rule. Indeed, one major plot twist is presented by Holmes stating what he had earlier observed even though no clue whatsoever had been presented to the reader. This makes THE ITALIAN SECRETARY read more like a crime novel than a detective novel.

Another point to note is the subtle supernatural aspect that Carr employs in the book. Although he tries to gloss this over in the final chapter, it nonetheless feels artificial in a Sherlock Holmes tale.

I realize that many Sherlock Holmes fans read books such as this simply to look for fault and errors and I therefore make the above criticisms hesitantly. This is a Caleb Carr book and should be judged as such. And, as stated above, it reads quite well from that perspective. I include such criticisms for the purists who would read the book from a different perspective. For everyone else, sit back and enjoy.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unconvincing and boring., April 22, 2006

By 

The Historian "History is my business." (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (Hardcover)

Caleb Carr tries very hard in this book to have the reader believe that the game is afoot with Holmes and Watson, but there is only one Conan Doyle and this book is a longwinded flop. Holmes believing in and seeing ghosts - total nonsense. Watson comes across as a thick witted dill and Holmes as a boring, arrogant know all who loves to instigate sibling rivalry with his poor brother Mycroft who is portrayed as an intellectual hillbilly when compared to Sherlock. The plot is poorly developed and the book seems to drift in an aimless and sterile prose.

I recommend A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullen which is about the great Holmes in the winter of his life to any reader who would like to read more about the man post Conan Doyle.