HarperCollins Collins Crime Club
Featuring: Mille La Victoire; Sherlock Holmes
ISBN: 0008129665 EAN: 9780008129668 Kindle: B00YGDLAFG Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Ensconced in domestic bliss, the recently married Dr.
Watson receives a note from Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock
Holmes's landlady; there was a fire at 221B Baker Street.
Holmes is unharmed, but out of it; he still hasn't
recuperated from his recent stint in gaol, and there is
evidence that the Great Detective is again under the
influence of cocaine. But then Holmes receives a missive
from a French chanteuse: her son has disappeared. The boy
is the illegitimate son of an Earl, which greatly
complicates matters. And so Holmes drags Watson to Paris
to investigate the case.
ART IN THE BLOOD is a very complex story where in
addition to looking for the child, there are mysteries
surrounding an art collection that might have been
acquired under suspicious circumstances. Some minor
characters are taken directly from history, such as
artist Toulouse-Lautrec and a Jean Vidocq, who is
presumably the grandson of the founder of the French
Sûreté, and Vidocq is a very entertaining character,
which I would like to see again.
The tone and the pacing
of ART IN THE BLOOD are extremely faithful to Conan
Doyle's, as are the characters of Holmes and Watson. The
descriptions are so eloquent and vivid that I could
easily picture Paris and London in the Victorian era, as
well as a 34 year-old Sherlock exalted and whooshing
about. I also enjoyed the author's attention to detail,
particularly when it came to medical and scientific
matters; there is not a hint of revisionism, which
greatly pleased me. There is plenty of action, the
characters are uniformly well-rounded, and the clever
ending took me completely by surprise. ART IN THE BLOOD
is a very well written mystery that does justice to the
original!
London. A snowy December, 1888. Sherlock Holmes, 34, is
languishing and back on cocaine after a disastrous Ripper
investigation. Watson can neither comfort nor rouse his
friend – until a strangely encoded letter arrives from
Paris.
Mlle La Victoire, a beautiful French cabaret star writes
that her illegitimate son by an English lord has
disappeared, and she has been attacked in the streets of
Montmartre.
Racing to Paris with Watson at his side, Holmes discovers
the missing child is only the tip of the iceberg of a much
larger problem. The most valuable statue since the Winged
Victory has been violently stolen in Marseilles, and
several
children from a silk mill in Lancashire have been found
murdered. The clues in all three cases point to a single,
untouchable man.
Will Holmes recover in time to find the missing boy and
stop
a rising tide of murders? To do so he must stay one step
ahead of a dangerous French rival and the threatening
interference of his own brother, Mycroft.
This latest adventure, in the style of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, sends the iconic duo from London to Paris and the
icy
wilds of Lancashire in a case which tests Watson's
friendship and the fragility and gifts of Sherlock Holmes'
own artistic nature to the limits.
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