By popcornbooksblog.com


At first I was sceptical, not quite sure what to expect from a Sherlock not written by Conan A. Doyle.
When I started reading my perplexity disappeared as I was getting more and more involved with the discovery of the international plot revealed page after page.
Once again I was walking the streets of a Victorian London with Watson as my guide, once again trying to guess the complex and unfathomable way of thinking of Sherlock Holmes.
Dealing with street urchins, powerful villains, complex government figures and historical mysteries, trying to discovery the truth about a missing officer and to give peace to a grieving mother.


Dr Watson’s character felt, to me, better highlighted than in most of the other adventures and, somehow, I felt this made Sherlock’s character more easily readable, less distant and less bizarre somehow.
The adventure per se it is revealed slowly and with a lot of research mixed with bits of action, even fights. The tone of the novel becomes more and more complicated, taking an investigation over a military matter to another level, the discovery of a political conspiracy (involving even people on the front pages of the political scenario of that time).

“So you divined a secret battle and an international conspiracy, simply because you were looking for a missing sailor.”