His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle | book review

【 HIS LAST BOW 】

Genre: Classic, Mystery
Audience: Adult
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Published: October 1917
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 256 (paperback)

Another fun collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures! I very much so enjoyed the audiobook production of this, narrated by Stephen Fry, and his foreword introducing it as Holmes’ second last bow, seeing as another collection of short stories ended up following this one, was a good bit of cheek. Holmes really is such a well-loved character that it took a few attempts to say goodbye to.

In this collection we have eight short stories, and the reason I give this four stars rather than five, is because while I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, there were a couple that didn’t have the super-wow factor I was expecting. My expectations are atmospherically high, clearly.

But my favourites from this collection were The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, which I just loved the cheeky resolution for, The Adventure of the Dying Detective, which was both cheeky and brilliant (poor Watson), and also The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, the resolution of which is horrifying and paints Holmes as a true hero.

Oh and I can’t not mention The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot – how exhilarating! This one was a great mystery that really has you stroking your beard and scratching your head in contemplation. And the way that Holmes so unhelpfully helps the police in this one is very funny.

The stories that didn’t blow my socks off were The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge (though we might be able to blame my attention straying in the audiobook, so perhaps I simply missed the good bits) – which I just felt a bit confused by – and His Last Bow. The latter of which I felt I was supposed to love enthusiastically but it felt like a case that was purely explained to us after the fact with very little detective work – is it just me there?

Well, I guess I must go through all the stories now, as there’s only one left: The Adventure of the Red Circle was quite fun, with international intrigue and a bit of coding to get behind. And it certainly forms part of a suite of Holmes stories where Holmes is quite willing to turn a blind eye to a crime done for fair reasons.

I think that half the fun with the Sherlock stories is simply the joy of exploring the case alongside him and the hilarious banter between him and Watson. I do love it when Sherlock puts Watson down thoroughly, even if he doesn’t mean it ‘personally’. So, minus a couple of ‘eh’ stories (for me), this was great fun and adds some excellent mysteries to the whole canon.

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Title: His Last Bow
Series: Sherlock Holmes #8
Author: Arrthur Conan Doyle
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‘We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’

Sherlock Holmes’s fearless chronicler Dr Watson once again opens his notebooks to bring to light eight further tales of some of the strangest and most fascinating cases to come before the enquiring mind of London’s most famous detective.

These mysteries involve the disappearance of secret plans as well as of a lady of noble standing; the curious circumstances of Wisteria Lodge and of the Devil’s Foot; as well as the story His Last Bow, the last outing of Holmes and Watson on the eve of the First World War.