My friend James goes from strength to strength, as the saying goes. This novelette is the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche I have read since Nicholas Meyer turned the field on its ear with The Seven Percent Solution.
James explains in an introductory note that the idea came when he read that during the nineteenth century the British intelligence service used doctors as spies in Asia. Of course, Dr. Watson was an army doctor in Afghanistan. And who was the head of British intelligence? Sherlock Holmes's brother Mycroft. If Watson was one of Mycroft's spies, than surely it was no coincidence that he wound up in a position to keep an eye on his boss's eccentric brother...
Wait a minute, the purists cry. Watson could never have been a spy! He was too innocent, too open, and not nearly observant enough.
And how do we know that? From the books and stories written by Dr. Wat- Oh. Hmm...
But Watson could never have fooled Holmes! Holmes was far too shrewd, too perceptive, and we know that from the books and stor- Hmm....
You may think I'm giving away the plot. Actually this is just the premise. All I will tell you about the actual plot is that it is told by two minor characters in the canon, and it retools some of the Holmes saga, while solving some of the great puzzles of the works (like Watson's famous wandering wound, for instance.)
And the writing sparkles. Here is one of the narrators: "I had known Lucky Jim Moriarty in India. We shared a common interest in embezzling from our regiments."
A treat from beginning to end, with some genuine shocks along the way.
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