shabbycoatlibrarian 's review for:

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

4.0

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While I am no Sherlockian myself, my love for Sherlock Holmes and the writings of A.C. Doyle runs deep and spans much of my reading life. "The Final Problem" was the first story I ever read that made me cry. So I was both intrigued and hesitant to read a piece of modern-day fiction supposedly tying together a world of Sherlock Holmes lovers and a historically-fictitious narrative occurring during the months of Doyle's missing diary. Much of this novel is based off of actual events (and real-life Holmes aficionados). And since the papers of Arthur Conan Doyle are still missing, I felt that the book did a great job trying to fill in the missing pieces of history without getting too presumptuous or fantastical. I really appreciated Graham Moore's treatment of one of my favorite characters (and his creator). With 4-stars out of 5, I deducted one star for the way the ending kind of "fell-off" a little bit (it was "fine," just not outstanding). There's also a bit of brief strong language sprinkled throughout (not gratuitously) that some readers might just want to be aware of.