Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes and the Frightened Golfer

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This is the only Sherlock Holmes pastiche from Breese Books to come my way that has been written by an author of some experience within crime literature ;Gregson being an accomplished purveyor of British police procedurals with the Peach Peach series ,and another set in the Cotswolds area .
It may be the reason why it strikes me as a little better written than most of the others and may explain why-despite some padding -it seems more concentrated and structured than other entries in the series
Holmes is contacted by one Alfred Bullimore a talented and fanatical golfer who while still an amateur devotes all his time to the sport .He is honourary secretary to a London golf club and he claims his life is being threatened .Notes threatening his life have appeared in the club and one memeber has been attacked .Watson is despatched undercover to suss out the situation and finds while not beloved Bullimore has not apparently evoked sufficientl strong antipathy to suggest others want him seriously harmed
When Bullimore then claims to have beeen attacked and shot at the enquiry steps up a gear and suspect are unearthed -the greenkeeper threatened with dismissal ;the typist who had conducted an affair with Bullimore only to discover she ranks below golf in his priorities
;another member beaten into second place for the position of secretary etc

Bullimore sets out on the tournament trail and some of his rivals are injured ,as events move to a climax at the British Open at Muirfield

The ending is pretty predictable and most experienced readers will spot the twist ending from some distance out Even so its a good quick read for devout Holmesians and golf lovers will enjoy it too as there is a passion for the sport evidenced in the writing and the early days of the game as a professional sport are well described

This may have had the best sales of any recent pastiche from Martin Breese--- at any rate, it is the only one I've seen that is in its 2nd printing. J. M. Gregson is a professional writer of mystery novels, at least one of which has also involved golf. He gets Holmes and Watson, and the 1896 milieu pretty much bang-on.

Alas, he uses Standard Pastiche Plot B (more recently seen in Val Andrews' HOLBOURNE EMPORIUM), but in this case it gives a plausible reason for Holmes' inaction, which serves to stretch the material to novel length (174 pages) without insulting the IQ of the reader or Holmes. Like Andrews' novel, the plot is a fairly thin excuse to give a detailed, nostalgic look at a vanished world--- in this case, the world of golfing clubs, golf tournaments and golf championships in 1896. I am no golfer, not knowing one end of a "stick" from another, but I wasn't bored.

Clues are fairly given, and the astute reader will be way ahead of Watson in identifying the villain, even if he doesn't recognize Standard Plot B early on. Recommended.