Something Unexpected From Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is something unexpected, and not just because of its author. Many authors have written new stories featuring Sherlock Holmes. This is different. Sherlock only appears briefly in the story, and that appearance is before his career as the world's first consulting detective begins. This is Mycroft's story, not the Mycroft that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about, but the young man who would become that Mycroft.

This isn't really a Conan Doyle pastiche. The author doesn't attempt to use Doyle's style, just his characters. There is a lot of research in evidence here, most of it fascinating. If Conan Doyle had his hero take a boat from London to Trinidad we wouldn't have learned nearly as much about boat travel during that period as we do here, for example, but it doesn't hurt the story at all and it is interesting stuff.

The story is a good one, though not one that Conan Doyle would have written (in my opinion). There is a good mystery here, and the nefarious goings on that are uncovered are all too plausible.

If you only know Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from his basketball career or his hilarious role in the movie Airplane! give this book a chance.

Fans of Holmes will not be disappointed.



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