Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Lost Himself (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) [Paperback]

Val Andrews (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Breese Books Ltd (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0947533702
• ISBN-13: 978-0947533700
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,030,507 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars starts out well, but then..., August 23, 2008

By 

Nancy O (hobe sound fl) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Lost Himself (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) (Paperback)

There are only X number of real Sherlock Holmes stories, so, having made my way through those several times, I have been collecting Sherlock Holmes pastiches over the years. The Man Who Lost Himself is one of these. This book would have been much better had it stuck to the main story at hand: A man comes to see Holmes and Watson at 221B with an incredible story. It seems that his wife was not feeling well, so he took her to a local physician. The physician was not there at the time, but his wife insisted on staying and went into the examining room. Some time went by, and the wife never came out. When the man went into check, he saw a nurse, but no wife. He returned to his home only to find that the house he thought was his was occupied by a man who swore he had been there three years. On going to his back for funds, he found out he had never banked there. It is a puzzling mystery indeed, and Holmes & Watson are on the case immediately. Considering that the book is only 112 pages long, you'd think that the author could have developed the story a bit better. The parts directly connected with this man's plight were quite good and well told. However, the author throws in an ape, a jewelry theft in France and various other silliness so that the main thread doesn't have time to develop into something better.Oh well. If you're a Sherlock Holmes pastiche fan, you'll want to read it, but beware. If you are considering reading Sherlock Holmes stories, do start with the originals before you do the pastiches.

2.0 out of 5 stars Thin and palid entry in the series, July 10, 2004

By 

F. J. Harvey "Cricket ,country music and a go... (Birmingham England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Lost Himself (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) (Paperback)

This pastiche Holmes novel opens promisingly when the great consulting detective and loyal companion Watson are interrupted in their Baker Street home by the erruption into their lives of a harried and dishevelled Professor Mainwaring .He tells of how he took his wife to see the doctor ,whereopon both the wife and doctoe promptly vanished .The nurse claims she was never a patient of te doctor .On returning home he finds that the house locks have been changed and another man is claiming to be the owner of the property and there are no records of his existence .
Intrigued Holmes takes the case and discovers that it is linked to Mannering'swork as an inventor and in particular his development of a revolutionary new aircraft engine which is being eyed covetously by England's rivals especially Germany .German agents have stolen the design for the engine and set up the predicament Mannering finds himself in .
Nothing daunted the dynamic duo pusue the villains to the Continebt in an attempt to recover the engine -a journey fraught with peril .It sees them incarcerated in both an English gaol and a German mental institution .
This is all pretty lively and rattles along at a fair clip but what scuppers the novel is the large amount of extraneous padding inserted into the story to ensure it is of a decent length .Several chapters are simply interpolated short stories -we learn of what happened to Holmes after he disappeared ,feared dead ,after the Reichenbach Falls incident ; there is a side story of Holmes solving a burglary in a provincial French town ,and there is a case of murder witnessed by a laboratory ape .None of these are remotely interesting and serve merely to pad out a slender tale to book length .
This is not among the best of the series and only completists need bother reading it .

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A book that should have lost itself, January 7, 2001

By 

"grrreg" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Lost Himself (Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) (Paperback)

As a general rule, I quite enjoy the Sherlock Holmes pastiches that Val Andrews writes. But not this one.

My impression is that the idea for a short story occurred, but it was padded out to make is a short novel instead. Worse still, there is very little in the way of deduction in this story.

The title itself is a little misleading, and the depiction of the regulars (including Inspector Lestrade) is done more as parodies than characters.

And then there is a jokey bit, where law officers refuse to believe that Holmes and Watson are themselves because they don't look like the Sidney Paget illustrations from the Strand magazine. The author found this so enjoyable that it gets used twice.

Not atrocious, but not what I'd expect from Val Andrews either.