A few months ago, I started reading collections of Sherlock Holmes stories written by authors other than Arther Conan Doyle. Many are fun, but some are too formulaic--a bit too many "It's elementary Watson"s and such. This, a novel adapted from some 1970s movie, is one of the latter. Watson is a bumbling idiot (and of course narrowly avoids being murdered), Holmes is sneering (and much too late to do any good), and the whole social order is in danger (only this time it's the sociali More...

Read in a period when I at least started every Sherlock Holmes pastiche I could find, this is one of the above average few that I actually finished. Never mind that best version of this story is the 1979 film released shortly after this. The book works on its own terms. It ain't Conan Doyle, but it ain't bad.