Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I enjoyed this book immensley. I have been a resident of Montana nearly 90 years ( and yes I needed some help to get this review on the computer). The author, does a wonderful job of weaving in characters of historical significance to Montana. I remember my parents talking of these people and I remember some of the buildings and places in the story. It is very good and held my attention for the two days it took me to read it. I enjoyed the book enough that I bought several additional copies for my sister and brother.
A Senior Citizen
Helena Montana

This book is fun. Arthur Conan Doyle, it is not. Montana history, it is not. Nevertheless, it is fun. The author's claim is that a long-locked safe contained manuscripts written by Dr. Watson which chronicled five cases that brought him and Sherlock Holmes to Montana. All center about the Butte-Anaconda area. The details are accurate enough as to the geography and time that the reader will enjoy speculating about people, events, and places. In many cases, the speculating will not be difficult.

The cases are plausible as Sherlock Holmes stories. Most of Watson and Holmes' mannerisms are also plausible. The investigative approaches are equally credible. To go into details here would reveal too much. This book is a necessity on the book shelves of avid Sherlock Holmes fans and of Montana history nuts. For others, reading it will be fun. If it sparks an interest in the history of Montana, Butte, and Anaconda; the author provides references leading the reader to factual sources.

The concept is open-ended enough to allow sequels. Anyone reading this first volume will quickly buy the next if there is one. You won't regret getting this one and reading it, just in case there is another.

Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles is an imaginative work that's a welcome addition to the panoply of works which has extended the life and breadth of experience of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective. Larry Millett, through his series of five Holmes novels set in Minnesota, showed that Holmes' incredible detective skills could be successfully employed in the pursuit of evildoers in America.

The Montana Chronicles likewise returns Holmes and Watson to the good old USA but has expanded upon the approach taken by Millett in several favorable ways. First, the venue has been changed to Montana, a place with its own mystique and a most interesting frontier history. Second, the author has successfully integrated figures from Montana's past into the story narratives. And, third, the book includes a number of historical photographs from near the turn of the century which help draw the reader into the stories.

I liked all four of the short novels presented in the book but preferred The Tammany Affair above the others, simply for the adroit way in which it used that portion of Montana history popularly known as the "War of the Copper Kings" as the setting for a mystery set around a racehorse.

I also give the author great credit for crafting stories with intricate, but not obtuse, plots that develop in a well-paced, but measured, way. It was a comfortable writing style, and I would not hesitate to purchase another book by the same author. Hopefully, he'll have something additional on the market in the not-to-distant future.

I really enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles. It was a fun read. The book contains four novellas featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson fighting crime in western Montana in the 1890s. The plots are engaging, imaginative, and well crafted. The conversational style makes you feel like you are right alongside the famous duo. The author has done a masterful job of integrating real life characters and Montana history into the plots, and it's hard to tell fact from fiction. There are numerous historic photos in the book, which adds to the ambiance of the stories

... Holmes commented, "There's no pretense about these Montana folk,
Watson, such a refreshing change from the English aristocracy."

Anyone who has ever known and loved "Montana folk" will also love these short stories by Montana (Anaconda / Helena) native John Fitzpatrick. Through the eyes of someone who knows both history and scenery of the mining ghost towns - and the pen of someone well-acquainted with Sherlock Holmes mysteries - Fitzpatrick tells four tales of intrigue that are a great read.

No pretense here: the mysteries are tons of fun. And if you're wondering about Fitzpatrick's choice of villains in these Montana mysteries, let's just say that Holmes discovers what we all know: Montana's women are pretty damn smart!

It's $12.95 well-spent, believe me!

I was born in Butte, Montana, and have often visited the Anaconda/Butte area, walking close by the ruins of the Anaconda smelters and hiking to old mine shafts in the area's hills. John Fitzpatrick captures these places and their historical flavors wonderfully in his book Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles. People, places and events are brought to life and ring true for this reader. The few historical photos included are a perfect accompaniment to the stories. There are not too many so that they disrupt the flow of reading, but there are enough so they add authenticity to the stories.
As a longtime fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, I was curious as to whether Fitzpatrick's stories would effectively follow Doyle's style. I was pleased to find that they mostly do. Characters are well developed and the story lines were varied. Fitzpatrick did a fine job of keeping the solutions to the "problems" a mystery until the end.
I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy light mysteries or historical fiction. It's a fun summer or sitting-by-the-fire read!

Unsurprisingly, many of those who devise new exploits for Sherlock
Holmes like to imagine him visiting their own corner of the world. John
S Fitzpatrick was perhaps inspired by the success of Larry Millett, who
had already brought Holmes and Watson to Minnesota in five books. At
any rate, in Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles Mr Fitzpatrick
brings the duo to `Rodgersburg' (a lightly disguised Anaconda, Montana)
after the events of Mr Millett's novel Sherlock Holmes and the Ice
Palace Murders. The four stories are ingenious and engagingly told,
though the style is not Dr Watson's. Mr Fitzpatrick justifies the
Americanisms by the fact that the text is `edited' by an American, but for the British reader that's perhaps stretching credibility rather far. At all events, Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles is great fun to read, not least as an introduction to life in Montana a century ago.

-Review written by Roger Johnson, Editor of "The District Messenger", the Newsletter of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, Oct. 2008

This book is a group of four Novellas about events that occurred during two trips by Holmes and Watson to Montana in the late 1890s. They are connected in time with the narrative covered in Larry Millet's publication, "Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders." James Hill, of Minneapolis, appears as a background character in this book as he does in those published by Mr. Millet, and as do other 19th Century American Empire builders.

Among the four tales included, "The Opera House Murder" is, by far, the best of the lot. All four suffer from Americanisms and a non-English point of view, so Sherlockian purists will be satisfied in their distaste for pastiches. On the other hand, "The Opera House Murder" is well-plotted and infested with interesting and engaging characters. The plot nicely combines successive revelations and excellent work by Holmes to deliver an unexpected villain to justice. The sense of Holmesian insight and Watsonian wonder were both well handled and comfortable to those addicted to the Canon.

The `editor' certainly displays a good sense of the world of 1890's Montana and the transition of the American West from frontier to industrial powerhouse. The four stories taken together provide a wide spectrum of activities and personalities of the era. The horse racing community pairs nicely with the hard rock miners and the modern conveniences of `The Company Town' contrast well with the Wild West Frontier image carried in the minds of visiting Englishmen. Unfortunately, the three following tales have not been so carefully crafted as the first so they were interesting stories, but did not really carry that same sense of being part of the Baker Street universe as appeared in the first narrative.

This is an interesting book by a talented author. He has shown that he can capture the magic of Baker Street, even in the wilds of Montana, but his work is not consistent and good stories suffer from the contrast with an excellent tale.

Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones, October, 2008

I bought this book because it had Montana in the title. I grew up there and was interested in how the book would portray the State. As an engineer by profession, I particularly enjoyed the description of the mining technology used during the late 1800's. I also think the author did a great job of describing life in Montana during that period.

I had never read a Sherlock Holmes or any other mystery book before and found these stories quite entertaining. Each of the stories has a kind of twist at the end which is hinted at in several places in the text but which I, at least, didn't see until it was over. The plots were clever.

The book is excellent light reading, perfect for bus trips to work. I give it five stars.

I purchased "Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles" recently and loved it so much I purchased several more copies to give as gifts.
The book tells what life was like during the late 1880s when most communities in Montana were mining camps.
Of particular interest were the descriptions of Anaconda during the "Copper King" era.
Fitzpatrick did a great job of weaving the mysteries around historical places and figures.
It's a novel that people of all ages will enjoy.
I highly recommend the book.
Kathie Miller
Montana