The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes #6)

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I started this one a couple days ago and finished the first story The Adventure of the Empty House which picks up where The Adventure of the Final Problem in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes left off.

Doyle's writing appears to have improved a little after taking a nine-year break from writing Holmes stories. Hopefully he has some new story ideas also, since he was starting to get stuck in some ruts in the prior collections.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Kristin wrote: "I took the participant lists from a former book in this series. Please let me know if there are any additions or subtractions and happy reading!"

Thanks Kristin!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished the second story The Adventure of the Norwood Builder. It's a bit different than other Holmes stories since (view spoiler)[the crime never actually occurred (hide spoiler)], which I thought was a fresh idea for the series. Also I think this story slows somewhat better than the earlier Holmes stories.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished a couple more:

The Adventure of the Dancing Men was similar to some other Holmes stories but at least had the fresh approach of the Dancing Men hieroglyphics. It's my favorite in this collection so far.

The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist was a bit too predictable and also had some similarities to other Holmes stories, but it flowed well and had more action than other stories. Is it bad that I kept thinking of the Queen song "Bicycle Race"?

[Ashley]

I finished The Adventure of the Empty House. I enjoyed this story and also agree that is was different than the rest and the writing seemed to improve. (view spoiler)[ It was an interesting touch that both the hunter and the hunted ended up in the same house. I also would have thought that Holmes would have considered this possibility as it was a perfect spot to take a shot at him. (hide spoiler)]

I also finished The Adventure of the Norwood Builder. This was another creative idea. (view spoiler)[ I liked the hiding in the walls, but Holmes was the only person to realize this. This was a story about revenge, and how trying to plant evidence can backfire. (hide spoiler)]

[Ashley]

Finished The Adventure of the Dancing Men. I agree that this was similar to some of the other stories, but it was still good. (view spoiler)[ Once again it is the past that comes back in the present and Holmes is trying to figure it out. The problem with codes, is that they can be broken. Which Holmes did and used it to find the person using the code. This was a nice touch and was a different way to catch someone. (hide spoiler)]

[Angela Jr.]

Hey guys, I'm unfortunately gonna have to drop out of this buddy read and the rest of the series too. Have fun reading :)

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Angela Jr. wrote: "Hey guys, I'm unfortunately gonna have to drop out of this buddy read and the rest of the series too. Have fun reading :)"

Sorry to hear that Angela!

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished The Adventure of the Priory School which was a longer story than most. I liked it because Holmes and Watson did a lot of detective work instead of just showing up somewhere and obtaining a quick confession.

I also read The Adventure of Black Peter which was a bit of a disappointment because it was very similar to many other Holmes stories (view spoiler)[(what's that you say? A terrible secret from the past comes back to haunt someone?) (hide spoiler)] and also because it was relatively short.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished two more, and both of these were much fresher storylines than the tried and true "secret past comes back to haunt someone."

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton is about (view spoiler)[a notorious blackmailer. Holmes is employed to get some incriminating letters back for a client, but when Milverton turns out to be unreasonable about the matter Holmes and Watson become burglars to get the letters back. (hide spoiler)] It's probably the most unique storyline yet for Holmes,

Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Six Napoleons: Case 9 is about (view spoiler)[ someone going around London breaking busts of Napoleon. Of course something is hidden inside one of the busts, it's not too hard to figure out. (hide spoiler)] Still there's lots for Holmes to do in this one and I don't remember another story with the same plot.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Kristin wrote: "RJ, are you Randy? Angela Jr, I will remove you from the list for now."

Yes. I changed my screen name because there's some other Randys out there in my groups. No RJs though.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished two more:

The Adventure Of The Three Students is Holmes catching a cheater! Fun stuff.

The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez is regrettably (view spoiler)[ back to the same ol' "past comes back to haunt someone" formula (hide spoiler)]

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I'm hoping to wrap this book up Monday or Tuesday before I take off to visit relatives for Thanksgiving. Then I'll take a short break before getting to the December read of The Valley of Fear.

[Ashley]

I finished The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist. I agree that this story was predictable. (view spoiler)[ There were not many people involved in this story and it makes it to that you know who was involved. There was not a lot to figure out in this story. I find that is somewhat common though in a lot of the short stories. (hide spoiler)]

I finished The Adventure of The Priory School. I though this was one of the better short stories. (view spoiler)[ There was an actual investigation and Holmes and Watson went on an adventure. They did some detective work and talked to people to figure out what was going on. (hide spoiler)]

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished two more:

The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter - college sports! But it's back to (view spoiler)[someone's past comes back to haunt them (hide spoiler)]. Also it's not as much a mystery as it is an attempt to (view spoiler)[follow someone who knows he is being followed (hide spoiler)] but at least it does keep you guessing as to what's actually going on.

Adventure of the Abbey Grange - here's a little different twist where the crime appears to be solved early in the story, but of course it isn't

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished The Adventure of the Second Stain and liked it a lot. It had one of the more complex plots of any of the Holmes short stories which made it especially enjoyable.

Now I'm going to take a brief Holmes break then I will start reading The Valley of Fear in early December.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

By the way, finishing this book marks 2/3 progress through the entire Holmes series! Three more books to go!

[Ashley]

I finished The Adventure of Black Peter and (view spoiler)[ its the past come back yet again. This time the story is a little different and Holmes tries to figure out what happened in the past. What happened was different than other stories though. There is just not much investigation. (hide spoiler)]

[Ashley]

Finished The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. This was not one of my favorites. (view spoiler)[ Holmes just has to try to get letters from Milverton as he is blackmailing someone. This is slightly different because Holmes becomes the criminal and breaks into Milverton's house to get the letters. (hide spoiler)]

[Ashley]

The Adventure of the Six Napoleons and Other Cases. (view spoiler)[ It was obvious that someone was looking for something in the Napoleaon busts. Why else would they track them down and break them? There was an investigation and some work by Holmes, but I felt like there could have been more. (hide spoiler)]

The Adventure Of The Three Students (view spoiler)[ This was a pretty narrowed down story. However, I felt like it skipped over a lot of the investigation. It mentioned it at the end when Holmes was talking to the student he caught cheating, but the investigation was not walked through. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Ashley wrote: "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons and Other Cases. [spoilers removed]

The Adventure Of The Three Students [spoilers removed]"

Good job Ashley! You're almost done.

[Ashley]

The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez (view spoiler)[ This story was a little strange. There is a murder and the professor feeds the murderer and must have known what happened. It was just a little strange. (hide spoiler)]

The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter (view spoiler)[ This was not a very interesting story. Holmes just followed someone to figure out what was going on. Not much happened.

Adventure of the Abbey Grange (view spoiler)[ This was an interesting story because there was different things going on but they were all related. (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

[Gary]

I am in the midst of Memoirs currently. I did read Hound of the Baskervilles years ago. I hope to get the Return early next year.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Gary wrote: "I am in the midst of Memoirs currently. I did read Hound of the Baskervilles years ago. I hope to get the Return early next year."

Nice! I assume our threads for the earlier books in the series are still around and accessible somewhere if you're interested in reading our insightful commentary. ;-)

[Gary]

RJ wrote: "Gary wrote: "I am in the midst of Memoirs currently. I did read Hound of the Baskervilles years ago. I hope to get the Return early next year."

Nice! I assume our threads for the earlier books in ..."

Just wish I knew which box housed my copy of the Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

[Scott]

I read the first two stories this morning. The first handles his return pretty well. I enjoyed the second story even though I had most of it figured out. The real fun was Holmes and detective La Strade.

[Scott]

I’ve read through the Peter black story. I really liked that one were the police detective overlooked a very important point