Review:The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes/Christopher Roden
This review of the pastiche collection "The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes", by June Thomson was written by Christopher Roden and published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 1, No. 3) in september 1990.
Review
- The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes
- by June Thomson
- Constable Crime, 1990; 224pp.; £11.95
Reviewed by Christopher Roden
June Thomson, described on the book's dust-jacket as the author of sixteen crime novels, is the latest in a long line to have acquired various narratives of John H. Watson M.D., late Indian Army.
The characters and settings of the seven adventures which make up the volume will be familiar to Holmes devotees, but it has to be asked, once again, why an apparently established author has to resort to the use of another's characters.
Dame Jean Conan Doyle made the point (A.C.D., p.1181 that, in pastiche, little differences occur which eventually distort the original character, and there is a good example of this in one of the adventures, entitled The Case of the Notorious Canary Trainer. This tale has Holmes and Watson visiting a high-class brothel. Of course brothels existed and no-one would try to hide the fact, but the point to make is that Conan Doyle did not write about them, nor would he have used them as a setting for a Sherlock Holmes story.
Despite this, some of the adventures are quite well presented although I felt, on more than one occasion, that they were drawn out and, at times a little laboured.
No doubt the pastiche debate will continue for many years to come.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
