<![CDATA[The Italian Secretary]]>

false <![CDATA[The Italian Secretary]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172200458m/149170.jpg 149170 24 Although Sherlock Holmes categorically dismissed, in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," supernatural explanations for corporeal crimes ("This Agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. ... No ghosts need apply"), one of the most popular among Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes tales is The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), in which the fate of a Devonshire family supposedly hangs on the savage appetites of an apparitional beast. More than a century later, in The Italian Secretary, Caleb Carr again presents the hawk-faced consulting detective with a yarn woven of paranormal plot threads, the mystery this time rooted in the fatal 16th-century stabbing of David Rizzio, a music teacher and confidant to Mary, Queen of Scots. For Holmes and his affable annalist, Dr. John Watson, this spirited escapade begins sometime in the late 19th century with their receipt, in London, of an encrypted telegram from Sherlock's eccentric elder brother, Mycroft, "a senior but anonymous government official." It summons them to Edinburgh, Scotland, where architect Sir Alistair Sinclair and his foreman, Dennis McKay, have been slain in the midst of rehabilitating the medieval west tower of the Royal Palace of Holyrood--the very wing where Queen Mary had lived, and where Rizzio had met his brutal, politically motivated end. Mycroft fears these murders portend new threats against Britain's present monarch--the elderly Queen Victoria, who infrequently lodges at the palace--by a known assassin, perhaps in nefarious league with the German Kaiser. En route north, Holmes and Watson are menaced aboard their train by a red-bearded bomb thrower (supposedly a rabid Scots nationalist), only to discover that still greater dangers await them, and others, at Holyroodhouse. The plaintive drone of a weeping woman, cruelly punctured and shattered corpses, a pool of blood "that never dries," and a disembodied Italian voice with unexpected musical tastes all imply the wrath of wraiths behind recent atrocities. But Holmes and Watson deduce that greed, rather than ghosts, may be to blame. Carr, who earned renown with his historical mysteries, The Alienist (1994) and The Angel of Darkness (1997), apparently intended The Italian Secretary to be a short story; however, he couldn't stop writing. The result is a fleet-footed, atmospherically gothic, and often amusing Holmes tale (with an exposition scene in Watson's bed chamber that's truly priceless), but one that makes scant attempt to enhance our understanding of Conan Doyle's characters--a less ambitious undertaking, in that respect, than Mitch Cullin's concurrently published A Slight Trick of the Mind. And while Carr displays a gift here for adopting another author's literary techniques, it is really his own style and series players that his fans are waiting to see more of in the future. --J. Kingston Pierce 1059378 2005 The Italian Secretary total:821|5:51|4:162|3:376|2:176|1:56| 821 2439 1191 119 1 2 false false Mon Sep 15 09:11:43 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 22 17:31:46 -0700 2008
The translation aside, this book is disappointing: the case might be 'sensational' and 'sadistic', but the way the case is solved did not satisfy me. I think that there are still questions left unanswered. And seriously, those ghosts are...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Mar 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 15:00:40 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 15:03:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 21 12:53:04 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 12:53:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Apr 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 15:23:16 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 15:26:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Nov 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Oct 28 05:55:32 -0700 2009 Tue Nov 03 09:32:23 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 02 04:55:23 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 08 06:26:39 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 20:43:35 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 20:49:06 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Thu Jun 04 22:40:19 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 22:43:57 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 14:49:28 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 27 14:54:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 07 07:45:29 -0700 2009 Fri Sep 11 23:29:35 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jan 09 10:48:14 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 09 10:53:09 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 09 08:30:09 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 09 08:30:09 -0800 2008 However, the endi...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 11 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Dec 06 22:43:31 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 13 02:53:51 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jul 06 15:16:10 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 15:36:18 -0700 2008 At any rate, Carr...more...]]> 3 4 false false Tue Mar 25 19:24:36 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 11 21:13:51 -0700 2009 1 The Italian Secretary is a pretty sweet piece of Sherlock Holmes apocrypha. There have been a number of attempts to write Holmes by authors other than Doyle, and those attempts have achieved varying degrees of success -- some dreadful and some impressive. Caleb Carr's attempt falls between these ext...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Feb 12 08:49:21 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 08:49:21 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Sep 02 18:05:37 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 11 22:22:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Apr 22 19:24:36 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 10:29:47 -0700 2009 The epilogue back in LOndon felt pretty weak as well.

Nice use of history and a good start, but the payoff is a letdown. ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 13 15:44:38 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 13 15:51:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Oct 04 17:59:04 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 17:59:04 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=149170