Amazon.com: The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Penguin)): Larry Millett: Books

Amazon.com
Although Sherlock Holmes, in Arthur Conan Doyle's original tales, only occasionally traveled much beyond London, he and his faithful chronicler, Dr. John Watson, have become regular globetrotters in Larry Millett's recent Holmes pastiches. The first four of these novels found the pair hieing off to Minnesota (not coincidentally, the author's home state), while The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes sends them to New York and Chicago in 1900, one frustrating step behind conspirators bent on framing them for kidnapping and murder.

Two years have passed since Holmes (in Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men") captured Abe Slaney, a Chicago gangster who murdered the husband of Elsie Cubitt, his childhood love. Now, Elsie has gone missing, and clues suggest that Slaney--though reportedly dead--is behind the snatch. Goaded by a bogus ransom demand and an enigmatic spiritualist, and perhaps also by the great detective's uncharacteristic affection for the Widow Cubitt, Holmes and Watson commence a lively chase that will lead them from a slain Liverpool strumpet to a foggy standoff at a Manhattan church, a death-defying train ride across Pennsylvania, and a climactic shootout at a Windy City fraternal hall. Millett's veteran readers will identify the malign genius behind this conspiracy well before the last page, and they may be disappointed with the minor role played here by Minneapolis saloonkeeper and series regular Shadwell Rafferty. Yet the author adroitly captures the spirit of the Holmes canon, while adding to it a modern urgency of plot and an infectious curiosity about the historical sites around which this tale's action occurs. If this novel doesn't surpass Millett's Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders for eccentric intrigue, it certainly bristles with shocks and twists enough to curl Queen Victoria's hair. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly
In his disappointing fifth pastiche (after 2001's Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance), Millett places Holmes and Watson in situations better suited to an Indiana Jones movie, with hairbreadth escapes, gun battles, chases and death traps. He removes most of the mystery by interrupting Watson's own first-person storytelling with third-person narratives that leave little doubt as to the identities and motives of the stock-villain criminals. Elsie Cubitt, from Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," becomes a love interest for the misogynistic detective. When she disappears, the clues, including the famous dancing men code, seem to point to a spurned suitor. Soon, however, an elaborate scheme to frame Holmes for Elsie's abduction, a related murder and several other crimes propels the legendary pair to New York, dogged by press accusations and a figure masquerading as Holmes. Neither the master sleuth nor Millett's own creation, Shadwell Rafferty, who dominated the plot of Secret Alliance, does much deducing. Uncanonical attributes ascribed to Holmes only detract from the power of the original. Because the Baker Street duo are sure to emerge triumphant, there's little suspense to engage the reader. Since his excellent debut, Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, the author has been straining ever harder for plausible ways to send Holmes to America. It may be time for Millett to transform this fully into a Shadwell Rafferty series or to apply his talents to a new series altogether.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Penguin)) (Hardcover)

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