Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword
Review: Frank Thomas, Sherlockian bridge player and novelist, missed his calling. He should have been a poet. This 1980 novel (published by Pinnacle Books) is wordy and rivals Poe in descriptive verbosity. Unlike Poe a good portion of the narrative contributes nothing to the mood or plot. And Conan Doyle never used five lines to say that it was raining hard!

The story begins quickly when a dreadfully wounded man is brought to the door of 221B with the words "They found it" on his dying lips. The cryptic message turnes out not to be for Sherlock Holmes but his brother Mycroft. Political intrigue ensues and leads Holmes and Watson across three continents and involves two major religions. The sacred sword of the title is Mohammad's battle sword whose possession threatens to trigger a jihad.

A disturbing trait of Thomas's is that he portrays Watson as a Nigelian buffoon. Sherlock Holmes would never tolerate such idiocy and there is no way Watson could have been such a talented raconteur if he was.

This book is a sequel to THE GOLDEN BIRD, Thomas's first foray into novel-length pastiches. That book should be read first as there are many references to it, though the reader won't get lost without having done so.

Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword
Review: Frank Thomas, Sherlockian bridge player and novelist, missed his calling. He should have been a poet. This 1980 novel (published by Pinnacle Books) is wordy and rivals Poe in descriptive verbosity. Unlike Poe a good portion of the narrative contributes nothing to the mood or plot. And Conan Doyle never used five lines to say that it was raining hard!

The story begins quickly when a dreadfully wounded man is brought to the door of 221B with the words "They found it" on his dying lips. The cryptic message turnes out not to be for Sherlock Holmes but his brother Mycroft. Political intrigue ensues and leads Holmes and Watson across three continents and involves two major religions. The sacred sword of the title is Mohammad's battle sword whose possession threatens to trigger a jihad.

A disturbing trait of Thomas's is that he portrays Watson as a Nigelian buffoon. Sherlock Holmes would never tolerate such idiocy and there is no way Watson could have been such a talented raconteur if he was.

This book is a sequel to THE GOLDEN BIRD, Thomas's first foray into novel-length pastiches. That book should be read first as there are many references to it, though the reader won't get lost without having done so.