This is both a historical novel and a mystery. Two stories are going on--they are told in alternating chapters. One is the story of a few months out of the life of Arthur Conan Doyle. Graham Moore takes the true outlines of Conan Doyle's life and extrapolates. We meet Bram Stoker and we get a taste of Oscar Wilde's personality. We meet some suffragettes and are introduced to a few philosophies on the subject. We get a glimpse into the mind of Arthur Conan Doyle as he "murders" his best known creation, Sherlock Holmes. We begin to see why he resurrects him, 8 years later.
The second story takes place in the modern day and is the mystery. The newest Sherlockian, Harold White, is caught up in the search for Arthur Conan Doyle's missing diary when the man who claims he has found it is murdered.
Both stories are mysteries, really, because both men are unraveling a crime.
I had a hard time getting into the book at first. I picked it up and put it down for days. About a third of the way in I was finally hooked. Part of the problem for me is that I didn't really like any of the characters. And I found Harold White to be a little unbelievable. That he was able to unravel a mystery that many Holmes experts had failed to up to that point seemed like a stretch. A big stretch.
It was an okay book. Definitely not one of my favorites. There is some crude and foul language--surprisingly used by the early 19th century characters, not the early 21st century ones.
Entertaining and interesting (once I got into it), but not great. That about covers it.
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