Customer Reviews

The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

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David Pirie's "The Patient's Eyes" is the first in a series of books about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell. Doyle is a young medical student in Edinburgh when he meets Bell, who is both a teacher in the medical school and a forensic scientist. Doyle soon becomes Bell's clerk and the two work together on a number of cases, including the very strange one in this novel.

Doyle's patient, Heather Grace, is a lovely young woman who suffers from eye troubles and nightmares. She also believes that a man has been surreptitiously following her, and may wish to do her harm. Since Miss Grace is about to come into a great deal of money, Doyle suspects that her relatives may want to get their hands on her fortune. When Dr. Bell intercedes in the case, he uses his forensic skills, his intuition, and his uncanny powers of detection to get to the bottom of the affair.

Pirie is a superior writer and he brings all of the characters in "The Patient's Eyes" to brilliant life. Doyle is a callow and troubled young man who comes from a dysfunctional family. Bell is Doyle's mentor, and he may be the real life model for the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Pirie's language, settings, and even the titles he chooses for his chapters are all reminiscent of those used in the Sherlock Holmes stories. There are also puzzles galore in this book to intrigue those who love interesting ciphers.

The story is complicated yet thoroughly engrossing, and I was genuinely surprised by the developments at the end of the book. Pirie has a knack for writing satisfying mysteries and I look forward to more novels about the collaboration between Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph Bell.

Those who have admired the cases of Sherlock Holmes and found "The 7 Percent Solution" to be a fresh look at the first great detective of popular fiction will find a different game afoot in "The Patient's Eye." The intriguing premise for David Pirie's novel is that Arthur Conan Doyle is playing the Watson role to Dr. Joseph Bell, the writer's real-life mentor in medical school at Edinburough and the model for Holmes. Doyle starts off in the role of Scully, unable to accept that the practice of medicine has anything to do with Dr. Bell's deductive reasoning from minute clues, but in due course he becomes a true believer in Bell's pioneering work in forensic medicine.

The case involves Miss Heather Grace, a young heiress who has been traumatized by an attack by a lunatic who murdered her parents. Now Miss Grace is subject to visions of a figure who follows her on her bicycle. The conceit here is that Pirie is working backwards from several of the cases from the Holmes canon, most obviously "The Solitary Cyclist," but also "The Speckled Band" and "Wisteria Lodge." The idea is that Doyle later fictionalized these stories from the "real" events contained herein. It was a good move on Pirie's part not to simply offer up the "true" story of one the original Holmes mysteries or to try and tackle one of the "biggies" in the canon. There is also more romance than you find in Doyle, what with the young doctor falling for his patient.

Most importantly, Pirie is able to present Doyle and Bell as interesting substitutes for Watson and Holmes. There is no pretense of friendship between the pair; they are teacher and student. Doyle is not as much the inept foil that Watson serves in the stories (indeed, he solves several initial mysteries before getting in over his head) and Bell is arguably more charismatic than the driven Holmes. There are times when Pirie follows the Doyle model too closely and the gallery of suspects is rather overdrawn, but as the first effort in what is clearly going to be a developing series, "The Patient's Eyes" is worth the reading. The execution is not quite up to the ambitious idea, but that is a minor concern. The one caveat is that you should read over the original Sherlock Holmes stories on which this novel is based to better appreciate how Pirie is using them in this story.

I was skeptical of another attempt at a Holmes resurrection but I was more than satisfied by this brilliant novel. I couldn't put it down and was often shocked and surprised by the turn of events. Two nights in a row I was up until well past 2 a.m. because I couldn't find the right place to let off for the night. The style is very in keeping with Arthur Conan Doyle's original work - at times I felt like I was reading his own words. I finished it this afternoon and want to turn right around and read it over to see all the threads connect and interweave. Very well done Mr. Pirie - more please!

In 1878, a bored Arthur Conan Doyle is a second year medical student in Edinburgh when the brilliant but unbearable megalomaniac Dr. Joseph Bell becomes his mentor (or perhaps tormentor). Though no one likes Dr. Bell everyone agrees he is a genius. His pioneering work in forensic medicine has fascinated law enforcement and academia alike and has led to a success criminal investigation career.

Arthur actually surprises himself when he realizes he relishes solving mystery puzzles and even more shocking at least to him working with' or perhaps better put, for the frustrating Dr. Bell. Arthur solves several mysteries and soon needs to protect Heather Grace, a victim of nightmares following the mass murder of her family. An obsessed Arthur believes that Heather remains in jeopardy from a killer who plans to finish the job unless he can protect the woman he cherishes.

This reviewer's first reaction to this novel was oy vey not another Holmes/Doyle novel. However, that quickly changed from the beginning to thoughts of how entertainingly brilliant is the one sitting read THE PATIENT'S EYES. Holmes fans and historical mystery readers will enjoy the plot that also enables the audience to solve a puzzler. However, the key to what makes this a wonderfully refreshing novel is Doyle, whom David Pirie depicts as a clever intermixing of the ingenious Holmes with the awed Watson.

Harriet Klausner

Written by the screenwriter of the BBC's Murder Rooms, this mystery chronicles Arthur Conan Doyle's first meeting with the eccentric Dr. Joseph Bell. Providing the basis for Sherlock Holmes, Bell and his "method" are put to the test with a number of cases, but the series of events surrounding a beautiful patient of Doyle's is the most sinister. As a fan of the short-lived television series, I bought the book as soon as I heard about it. Surprisingly the book did not strictly follow the episodes that I had seen. Pirie's evocative writing perfectly captures the memoirs of a troubled man recalling his dark past. He also has a talent for creating an ominous, foreboding atmosphere. I'd recommend this mystery to avid Sherlock Holmes fans, but also to anyone who wants to read a dark, thrilling story.

This epitome of apocryphal Sherlockiana (Doyle-iana?) has been reviewed at length by people more accomplished, and by professionals who know how to award marks as well as how to deduce them while reviewing a work. Alas, an ignoramus like me can only go ga-ga (not the Lady, of course) over something if he likes it, otherwise simply forget it and condemn the work (and often the author, as well) to the dungeon. This book belongs to the former category. I loved it, esp. the deeply disturbing images with which the novel concludes which may (I repeat: "may") explain why Arthur Conan Doyle's sharp & analytical mind determinedly ran away from reality, and being a 'bleeding knight' himself, how he might have sought the refuge of nonsensical stuff. I had devoured this novel sometime towards the begining of last month, but have started reveiwing the series after completing the entire trilogy. If there are still lovers of Sherlock Holmes (and detection-enthusiasts in general) who have not read this book, then I would like to recommend them to this book at all haste.

I've finished a book by David Pirie called The Patient's Eyes which is a mystery starrning not Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but Arthur Conan Doyle (pre-writing days) and Dr. Joseph Bell, who was Doyle's medical mentor at the University of Edinburgh - that's historical truth. Anyway, what Pirie has done is select ideas and events from the Holmesian canon and re-imagine them as part of the Doyle-Bell adventure so that you see in this story parts of both "The Solitary Cyclist" and "The Speckled Band." Pirie is such a good writer that even though some of his ideas are familiar he hustles the reader along in an exciting, twisting, gothic tale that is well worth the journey.

Everyone who loves a good Sherlock Holmes mystery MUST read this book! This is the difinative fictional book on the Master's creator.

This is a terrific read - fast paced and complex. I read it in a single sitting, then leafed back through. It's a "keeper" that won't get cycled through the used book store - it'll be read again and again, especially as Pirie promises more in the series. The next in the series will be released in the U.K. in Oct. 2002, and I await it with pleasant anticipation.

While I enjoyed reading a fresh take on the world of Sherlock Holmes, with Joseph Bell mentoring Doyle, instead of a rearanging of the bones of our beloved canon, this book gives me deja vu. Bell and Doyle end up investigating cases that fall along parallel lines to the canon, such as waiting for a bicylist on a desterted stretch of road which shouted "Solitary Cyclist!!!" in my ears.
Hmm...a different take but not entirely new.