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halberdbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
After decades of copyright law being extended and extended and extended by curious coincidence with the copyright of Mickey Mouse, the very last volume of official Sherlock Holmes stories has finally entered into the public domain. Here, at long last, are the last vestiges that the Doyle estate could cite as proof of ownership over some aspect or another of the otherwise freely available characters. And it turns out, it kind of sucks. There certainly are some high points: The Three Garridebs involves the same level of delightfully weird fraud as The Red-Headed League, and the solution of Thor Bridge is one of the most ingenious devices in the series. But here also are absolute lows: utter non-mysteries such as The Lion's Mane and The Veiled Lodger, bizarre and uncomfortable stories like The Sussex Vampire and The Creeping Man, and, of course, the almost jubilantly hateful racism in The Three Gables.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Murder
Moderate: Suicide
silver_valkyrie_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
I started out sad to be reading the last Sherlock Holmes book I will ever read for the first time. My emotions got more complicated because this one is a little odd in places... There are still some really good stories in here, but others are weird (narrated by Holmes instead of Watson, for instance), or blatantly racist, so all in all, I'm maybe just as glad he didn't keep writing more stories if this is the direction he was going with them.
Still worth re-reading (or, at least, most of the stories in the book are worth re-reading), but doesn't quite rank as a favorite like the rest of the Sherlock Holmes short story collections.
Still worth re-reading (or, at least, most of the stories in the book are worth re-reading), but doesn't quite rank as a favorite like the rest of the Sherlock Holmes short story collections.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Murder, and Racism
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide
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