| Title | : | The Monster of the Mere (Sherlock Holmes) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | Published June 20, 2023 |
A serene walking holiday in the Lake District becomes a far more sinister excursion for Dr Watson when disappearances and murders start occurring in the small town of Wermeholt.
Local legends, rumours of large slithering reptiles and spooked palaeontologists have the denizens paranoid and terrified, so it is up to Watson and his inbound companion Sherlock Holmes to uncover the truth and discover what is really lurking in the lake…
The Monster of the Mere (Sherlock Holmes) Reviews
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CAWPILE 6.71 3.5 STARS
Read for Final Book Support Group Round 8 Prompt- Borrow a Book
This is a library borrow- I've read a few of the Titan Sherlock series which introduced me to George Mann and James Lovegrove whose writing I adore and I have gone on to read more of their back catalogues. I have read from Pursur Hallard before but I hadn't remembered it until I looked on my Goodreads history (my memory is getting worse I swear!) As a northerner I loved the lake district setting and the accent was quite amusing. I didn't foresee the twist in this which I won't spoil for anyone reading but this was a surprisingly eerie read. My only wish was that it was longer! -
Watson's attempt at a Lake District hiking holiday comes unstuck when, stopping off at an unwelcoming village, another visitor dies gruesomely, apparently killed by the Nessie-esque Hagworm which local legend insists lives in the lake. Introducing another Conan Doyle character suggests which way the story is pointed, but doesn't wholly give away the ensuing genre mash-up, which picks up on themes that were very much animating the late Victorian mind (comparative religion and folklore; evolution and the discovery of deep time), but which the original stories tended to address at most glancingly, as in the deeply wonky Creeping Man. Or at least, they do in the ones I know, which isn't all of them, so my apologies if I've missed one where Holmes either teams up with or unmasks TH Huxley.
It takes the man himself a while to show up, and by sheer happenstance it was during that first, shorn of Sherlock section that I listened to the new John Finnemore, containing a brilliantly mean sketch where someone is far more excited to meet Watson than his preening associate. But despite that priming, once he arrives Purser-Hallard's Holmes as ever passes the Brett test, and soon seizes control of proceedings as they mount towards a finale I could only picture as staged by Hammer. The catch being, that also made me realise how much more streamlined their version would have been. Titan's Holmes novels seem to come in around 250 pages as standard, or about as long as Conan Doyle's first two full-length outings for the great detective combined. In something like Purser-Hallard's earlier Spider's Web, the richness of the set-up merited that, but while he certainly gives us some memorable characters here, I also felt like a few of the suspicious rustics and learned disquisitions could have been trimmed, and there's one geek in-joke that never quite pays off. Still fun, but, like Watson at the end, I'm hoping for London next time. -
I noticed some of the other reviews were maybe a bit lower than my 5 starts, but I really did enjoy this book. For one thing, it was a bit of a different type case for our duo as opposed to the usual murder or thefts they are normally tasked. But this read has its share of dead bodies.
It seemed really well researched too. With the ancient folklore and mystical aspects.
I would recommend it to followers of the sleuths.
