Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure in North America [Paperback]

Larry Millett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1997

The Great Detective is summoned from England to the pinelands of Minnesota by railroad magnate James J. Hill to save the Great Northern Railroad from being set afire and Hill from the epistolary threats of the infamous ""Red Demon."" Reprint. Tour."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Placing Sherlock Holmes in the pineries of Northern Minnesota in 1894 may not have been a three-pipe problem for Minneapolis architecture columnist Millett (Lost Twin Cities). However, there is little here but smoke and facade. The real and devastating Hinckley, Minn., fire of 1894 serves as the historical backdrop when Holmes is hired by railroad tycoon James J. Hill to find the Red Demon, the man "who is trying to burn down one of his railroads." After arriving in Hinckley to investigate, Holmes and Watson are attacked by feared logger Jean Baptiste LeGrande and rescued by Tom "Boston" Corbett, who claims to have killed John Wilkes Booth. The Town Marshall is murdered before clues lead the London duo to identify the Red Demon and the injury that motivates his actions. The final duel between Holmes and the Red Demon on a burning trestle is gripping, but this action is too little too late. Millett capitalizes on expected Sherlockian gimmicks ("parlor tricks" of deduction, hints of unrecorded grotesque cases, Holmes's masterful disguises and Watson's pomposity) but fails to probe beneath the surface of Holmes's popular image.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

An urgent, lucrative demand from railroad tycoon James J. Hill sends Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to the pine forests of Minnesota, which a letter-writer calling himself the Red Demon has threatened to set afire, destroying 85 miles of Hill's Eastern Minnesota Railway along with the surrounding landscape. Once ensconced in rustic Hinckley, Holmes and Watson visit a den of iniquity called Mother Mary's, where Watson's person undergoes vile indignities at the hands of Laura and Dora, the Jack Pine Twins; outfit themselves as lumberjacks (``You look quite woodsy,'' Watson tells Holmes) in order to confront a sinister logger in the deep woods, where they're rescued by a messiah in buckskins; and try to read the clues in the disappearance of Hill's agent and the murder of the town marshal (``MARSHAL WILLIAM THOMPSON INCINERATED IN HOME--BULLET IN HIS BRAIN--FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED,'' the Hinckley Enterprise sagely reports before the Red Demon can visit a gruesome, fact-based catastrophe on the train tracks, pine trees, and citizens of Hinckley. Minnesota journalist Millett has mastered neither the cadences nor the exclusions of Watson's narrative--the story is full of tedious details Watson would have excised--but its colorful, improbable incidents and its attention to clues make it a respectable example of mid-grade Sherlockian foolery. A sequel in St. Paul is hinted. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); later printing edition (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140258825
• ISBN-13: 978-0140258820
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,192,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The ring of authenticity, March 3, 2003

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Penguin)) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this "lost" Watsonian manuscript may well be authentic.

Don't misunderstand me here; I'm not making this claim for _all_ of Larry Millett's Holmes adventures. I'm prepared to accept the possibility that Holmes got to Minnesota once -- even twice, since the first trip was supposedly at the behest of James J. Hill and it makes sense that Hill might summon him again. But four or five times, with a lost MS every time, is stretching it a bit.

Nevertheless the most obvious objections don't tell against this particular tale, even if we want to be suspicious of its increasing number of sequels. So the setting "happens to be" Millett's own home turf? Well, Millett is a well-respected historian of the Twin Cities; if Holmes had been involved in a case or two in Minnesota, who would you _expect_ to come into possession of a lost MS telling the tale?

The tale itself is well-told and in the Watsonian style. Oh, the characterization doesn't always quite ring true (and indeed there is at least one scene that looks suspiciously as though it has been colored by Millett's own idea of comic relief). Nor is that characterization terribly deep; Sherlockians/Holmesians looking for Holmes-Watson interaction of the "old vintage" may be somewhat disappointed.

But let's remember that Watson was (allegedly) not writing this tale for publication; some of his usual touches may therefore be absent for entirely legitimate reasons. We may even entertain suspicions that Millett himself has fluffed up the writing a bit here and there and still accept that the MS itself may be authentic.

And there are enough nice touches to support the claim of authenticity. I can't tell you most of them without spoiling the story for you (they involve specific clues and false starts and such), but here's one: as Holmes and Watson investigate a series of possible arsons, they adopt the names "Baker" and "Smith" -- two trades that use fire in their practice and so are eminently suitable for a pair of investigators out to tame the red demon of the title. Millett includes plenty of erudite footnotes, but neither these nor the main text mention this little Holmesian touch; it therefore tells heavily in favor of authenticity.

Authentic or not, the story itself is pretty engaging. And it's told against a very realistic background, with a clear sense of the deep moral ambiguities of the nineteenth-century railroad industry. (The railroads were neither an unmixed blessing nor an unmitigated evil. They were good in some obvious respects, but the damage they did was real too -- and unfortunately the difficulty, herein described, of getting satisfaction from the courts was all too historical.) The author -- whether Watson or Millett -- keeps all this stuff in the mix without taking sides or allowing it to color the mystery itself.

Nicely done, then, and worth reading. And if it's a genuine Watson manuscript, so much the better.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The game is afoot! (Spoiler), January 18, 2002

By 

"patchbunny" (Yuba City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Penguin)) (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a Sherlock Holmes fan. Not a rabid fan, but a fan nonetheless. I cannot possibly successfully debate the finer points of Holmes trivia with anyone, but I do enjoy the stories by Doyle and others, and the many radio plays, movies and TV series involving the characters.

In the Raymond Benson James Bond series, I discuss why I have problems rating books a '1' or a '5'. I will not repeat it here. Suffice to say that, except for some minor issues I have with Millet's writing, I could push this book towards a '5'. A '4', though, will have to do.

Millet, I feel, creates a scenario with Holmes and Watson that I find believable. I can accept the characters in their situation, I can accept their dialog, and I can accept how they approach a given situation and work its solution. That is vital to any set of characters, but particularly so where the protagonists have already been created and discussed at length. In my mind there is a clear picture of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, and they mesh well with Millet's creation. He has found the character's souls, and he uses them well.

What struck me most with Millet's writing is a scene where Holmes is pacing a room, deep in thought, and Watson describes Holmes as "frustrated with having to wait for real events to catch up with the swift workings of his mind." A beautiful description of Holmes and his personality, and one that sticks with me. This behavior of Holmes is present not just in Sir Doyle's work, but in his followers as well. It is the quintessential Holmes.

Millet also writes a thrilling conclusion. The race to save townspeople from the raging inferno as Bill Best holds the train far later than is safe was a page turner of the highest level. I could not have put the book down and stopped reading even if that inferno was bearing down on my chair. And as it described on a real-life event (there really was a Bill Best, and he really did hold a train for fleeing residents as the town burned around him), it was all the more chilling. I could visualize every detail as I read, picture the people fleeing the walls of fire, and hear the cries of terror and the tension of their panic. Now THAT was a climax.

Given that, why not a '5'? Sorry to say, but Millet enjoys far too much in the Holmes quirk of describing everything about a person when they first meet. This is heavily overused, and greatly interrupts the story flow as I mentally shout, "What, again?!?" I just couldn't give this story a '5'.

Overall, though, a highly entertaining book, and one that I will reread again. I recommend that you check it out as well.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, April 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Penguin)) (Mass Market Paperback)

I liked this book. Millett isn't Conan Doyle, and his Holmes is a little ruder, coarser, and not quite as brilliant. But, then, nobody will ever be Conan Doyle. The book is good historically; I enjoyed that aspect of it immensely. And it is full of action, it is a very exciting book, I thought. I guess the best compliment I can give it is that, being the first of Millett's Holmes novels that I read, it made me want to read the others, and I am currently reading "The Ice Palace Murders" and enjoying it very much as well. But, again, caveat emptor: this is NOT an exact replica of Conan Doyle's Holmes, but I do think it's a ripping good story.