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nathanjhunt's review
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
This is my 49th book finished in 2023. I picked it up from a book cafe in Hoi An, Vietnam and left it behind in Auckland, New Zealand.
I don't think highly of this book, I just found it pretty dull and far too long. The stakes seem low and I don't give a damn about religion, so found the subject matter boring.
I have basically only criticisms:
It started off okay, but I quickly dropped off when the author introduced characters I'm supposed to know from a previous book. But the author does absolutely nothing to reintroduce them to new readers. I have no idea who they are, what they've done, what their relationships are with the other characters, or why I should care about them.
30 pages of the book are taken up by two characters from a previous book discussing what happened in the previous book. For the author to do absolutely nothing to recap is ridiculous. I have no idea what they're talking about. It's not like this is part of a numbered series - surely it should just be a standalone novel?
For some reason, the POV switches to Sherlock's cousin's wife's perspective a third of the way in. I ended up glancing over most of the middle, as I became so bored of reading pages of the three women characters talking about the opera, Catholic theology and eating crème brulé! Then chapter 8 was hideously unnecessary, being 22 pages of the synopsis of MacBeth. And then the next chapter was equally unnecessary - the two women having tea with a pervy priest, discussing French poetry. YAWN. There may be a place for this in other books, but this is a Sherlock Holmes crime detective novel, and it added absolutely nothing to the plot.
I get that the book is rooted deeply in the Victorian source material, but there's so much underlying misogyny that reads weirdly for a book published in 2018.
The basis of the story is that a man hires Holmes to investigate his wife - against her wishes - and dives into her past which she doesn't want exposed. Leave it to the men to put their noses where it's not wanted!
All the characters are constantly exclaiming "wow could a woman really do that?" "but a woman?!" "the fairer sex is not capable of this!" Oh my god, I can't believe this book was published 5 years ago.
And the book is just so... unexpectedly sexual. "Her torso was turned so that one breast was in portrait...curving up underneath to the nipple...the areolas were painted the faint pink of a woman who had not conceived babies and nursed...she was slender but voluptuously curved...my eyes swept down to the dark triangle of pubic hair..."
Like what? I feel like I'm reading a Game Of Thrones novel. There are just a weird amount of occasions the author describes a woman as "voluptuous", and talks about their breasts. The women are always described so sexually.
The author is clearly horny for hands! Each chapter he talks weirdly about the size and shape of a woman's hand. It comes out of nowhere. It's completely unnecessary to anything happening in the plot. It's just so weird!
I also don't understand, am I missing something? Why are there so many giant women in the novel? Why is this not explained? This seems to be another of the author's kinks.
So the characters speak French for a lot of the book, and this is translated for the reader as English. But for some reason, it will have random words and sentences in French, and then the other character will translate it out loud. Why is this necessary if the text is ALREADY being translated into English by the narrator?
The most detailed aspects of the book are the meals the characters eat, and "how good the brandy is". Nothing else seems to be described so minutely! All they seem to do in this book is drink wine and brandy, and solve no mysteries.
Every few pages, someone asks if another person is a Catholic. Seriously, it's mind-numbingly repetitive. My god, I don't care, I'm so bored of this constant religious dribble.
The book is also poorly edited. I spotted numerous spelling mistakes, and a couple of serious errors:
On page 159, it says "Michelle" instead of "Violet" - this changes the meaning of the rest of the paragraph, suggesting Henry is having an affair with Violet! What, how did no one pick up on this?
On page 342, the author is just plain wrong! He says "the beginning of the end was in the 17th century when Henry began his war against the catholic church." Henry VIII died in 1547! The Anglican church was founded in 1534. The author can't even get his history facts right!
I could not summarise the plot for you at all. It started simply enough, but then exploded into other things...How is any of this related to the initial letter? Why should we care about any of it? Everyone at risk died in the end, Holmes did nothing!
I just didn't care about the ending of the book, and the last chapter is the most pointless thing I've ever read. Why did we spend 12 pages travelling from Paris to London, onto Whitby, back to London, then Paris, and then plan to go back to London? I want to pull my hair out!
So in conclusion, I was going to say this reads like a bad fanfiction, but then I realised that's exactly what this is. I definitely won't be reading any more of the Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes books.
TL;DR:
It's bloated with far too many shallow, under-developed, completely boring characters. It's a terrible pastiche - this is worse than any original Sherlock novel I've read. Just don't bother, there's so many OG Sherlock stories out there.
I don't think highly of this book, I just found it pretty dull and far too long. The stakes seem low and I don't give a damn about religion, so found the subject matter boring.
I have basically only criticisms:
It started off okay, but I quickly dropped off when the author introduced characters I'm supposed to know from a previous book. But the author does absolutely nothing to reintroduce them to new readers. I have no idea who they are, what they've done, what their relationships are with the other characters, or why I should care about them.
30 pages of the book are taken up by two characters from a previous book discussing what happened in the previous book. For the author to do absolutely nothing to recap is ridiculous. I have no idea what they're talking about. It's not like this is part of a numbered series - surely it should just be a standalone novel?
For some reason, the POV switches to Sherlock's cousin's wife's perspective a third of the way in. I ended up glancing over most of the middle, as I became so bored of reading pages of the three women characters talking about the opera, Catholic theology and eating crème brulé! Then chapter 8 was hideously unnecessary, being 22 pages of the synopsis of MacBeth. And then the next chapter was equally unnecessary - the two women having tea with a pervy priest, discussing French poetry. YAWN. There may be a place for this in other books, but this is a Sherlock Holmes crime detective novel, and it added absolutely nothing to the plot.
I get that the book is rooted deeply in the Victorian source material, but there's so much underlying misogyny that reads weirdly for a book published in 2018.
The basis of the story is that a man hires Holmes to investigate his wife - against her wishes - and dives into her past which she doesn't want exposed. Leave it to the men to put their noses where it's not wanted!
All the characters are constantly exclaiming "wow could a woman really do that?" "but a woman?!" "the fairer sex is not capable of this!" Oh my god, I can't believe this book was published 5 years ago.
And the book is just so... unexpectedly sexual. "Her torso was turned so that one breast was in portrait...curving up underneath to the nipple...the areolas were painted the faint pink of a woman who had not conceived babies and nursed...she was slender but voluptuously curved...my eyes swept down to the dark triangle of pubic hair..."
Like what? I feel like I'm reading a Game Of Thrones novel. There are just a weird amount of occasions the author describes a woman as "voluptuous", and talks about their breasts. The women are always described so sexually.
The author is clearly horny for hands! Each chapter he talks weirdly about the size and shape of a woman's hand. It comes out of nowhere. It's completely unnecessary to anything happening in the plot. It's just so weird!
I also don't understand, am I missing something? Why are there so many giant women in the novel? Why is this not explained? This seems to be another of the author's kinks.
So the characters speak French for a lot of the book, and this is translated for the reader as English. But for some reason, it will have random words and sentences in French, and then the other character will translate it out loud. Why is this necessary if the text is ALREADY being translated into English by the narrator?
The most detailed aspects of the book are the meals the characters eat, and "how good the brandy is". Nothing else seems to be described so minutely! All they seem to do in this book is drink wine and brandy, and solve no mysteries.
Every few pages, someone asks if another person is a Catholic. Seriously, it's mind-numbingly repetitive. My god, I don't care, I'm so bored of this constant religious dribble.
The book is also poorly edited. I spotted numerous spelling mistakes, and a couple of serious errors:
On page 159, it says "Michelle" instead of "Violet" - this changes the meaning of the rest of the paragraph, suggesting Henry is having an affair with Violet! What, how did no one pick up on this?
On page 342, the author is just plain wrong! He says "the beginning of the end was in the 17th century when Henry began his war against the catholic church." Henry VIII died in 1547! The Anglican church was founded in 1534. The author can't even get his history facts right!
I could not summarise the plot for you at all. It started simply enough, but then exploded into other things...
I just didn't care about the ending of the book, and the last chapter is the most pointless thing I've ever read. Why did we spend 12 pages travelling from Paris to London, onto Whitby, back to London, then Paris, and then plan to go back to London? I want to pull my hair out!
So in conclusion, I was going to say this reads like a bad fanfiction, but then I realised that's exactly what this is. I definitely won't be reading any more of the Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes books.
TL;DR:
It's bloated with far too many shallow, under-developed, completely boring characters. It's a terrible pastiche - this is worse than any original Sherlock novel I've read. Just don't bother, there's so many OG Sherlock stories out there.
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