You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

tanithcos's profile picture

tanithcos 's review for:

The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
4.0
adventurous informative mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I decided to pick up the original books again after watching some Sherlock episodes, as I had years ago, when I've read a study in scarlet.

As always with older books it took me some time to adapt to the style of writing and pace.

The book is split in two parts. The actual case which wasn 't very interesting, because Holmes typically solved everything instantly,
even giving the name of the suspect, and they catch him

And the part where the culprit tells his backstory and how he's connected to everything.
Which was quite enthralling, since the story told of an Indian uprise against the British conquerors and you'd get some historic informations.

That's the same thing I like about a study in scarlet and early the Mormon settlement in Utah.

Reading about historic events through the lens of the characters living through them.

As it's a book from 1890 and from a British perspective it's filled with racist descriptions of PoC and harmful clichés.

There is for example Tonga the "black cannibal" who is described monkey faced and hideous looking.

Or there is the way they talk about the "Indian mutany" against the British Occupation, that's obviously in favour of the British imperialists.

But that's what's giving an authentic look at the times the book was written in.

And when I talk of the times the book was written in I have to talk about the love story.
The instant love Watson has for their employer Miss Morstan, how the whole time he was split between wanting to find the treasure and wishing they wouldn't, to keep her closer to his social status seriously annoyed me. And how the known each other for maybe a week and are now engaged?! Well I guess that's how it was back then...


Anyway, I'm glad to have finished the first 2 novels and can now concentrate on the short stories, in the hope that these will be perfect for the phase between 2 books.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings