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The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2)

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Jul 25, 2021 Werner rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, mystery-crime-fiction

Several early editions of this second novel in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon printed the title as The Sign of Four, and it appears that way in a number of Goodreads editions; but Doyle titled the original The Sign of the Four, identifying the titular four as a specific foursome with the definite article, and that's the way the sign is always referred to in the book. Set in London in 1888, it has a backstory rooted in India in the days of the bloody Sepoy Mutiny of 1857-58 (https Several early editions of this second novel in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon printed the title as The Sign of Four, and it appears that way in a number of Goodreads editions; but Doyle titled the original The Sign of the Four, identifying the titular four as a specific foursome with the definite article, and that's the way the sign is always referred to in the book. Set in London in 1888, it has a backstory rooted in India in the days of the bloody Sepoy Mutiny of 1857-58 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_... ), with a subsequent side trip to the grim real-life confines of the British prison on the Andaman Islands (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andaman... ). I'd originally read it as a kid, but had never reviewed it; so a recent reread with a Goodreads group gave me the opportunity to remedy that.

Beginning with a visit to Holmes and Watson's Baker Street lodgings by a young woman named Mary Morstan, who brings a strange story and wants our series characters to accompany her to a mysterious meeting with an unknown party, this novel has, chronologically, a very tight plot; the main action unfolds over just four days. This is the most extravagantly Romantic of the Holmes novels. The tale centers around a fabulous Asian Indian treasure, stolen more than once; it will feature murders, betrayal, revenge, clean romance, and a hefty component of exoticism. There will be a high-speed chase down the Thames in steamboats, which ratchets up the excitement factor. It's also the only bit of the Holmes canon that offers, albeit briefly, an on-stage action element; Holmes' prowess as an amateur boxer is only referred to briefly, not displayed, but we do have some actual gun-play here. I believe it also introduces the Baker Street Irregulars, Holmes corps of street urchins who sometimes serve him as eyes and ears, since I don't recall them in A Study in Scarlet (although I also read that one as a kid, so my memory for its details has been blurred by time). Some reviewers regard it as among "the best" or "most memorable" of the Holmes tales.

However, though I personally liked it well enough for the passing entertainment it is, it's my least favorite of the Holmes novels. Being quite short --189 small-sized pages in the 1904 printing by an obscure U.S. publisher in which I read it-- it's a quick read, but shallow in proportion. Holmes' deductive and observational skills are displayed in reconstructing events at the crime scene, but the basic solution is, as he noted, simple (and already telegraphed well enough for most readers to piece it together for themselves from the circumstances previously set forth). The plot too is simple, straightforward, and linear; the challenge is tracking the already identified guilty one(s), but this is facilitated by a handy coincidence. So, viewed strictly as a mystery, it's fairly thin. Mary Morstad is not developed much as a character beyond the fact that she's beautiful; Thaddeus Sholto is so eccentric he's practically a cartoon, and Tonga is racially stereotyped. I didn't feel the romance as genuinely convincing, partly because of the insta-love factor which here is so quick it's ridiculous. Holmes' abuse of cocaine here is also very prominent, actually "bookending" the story.

In a nutshell, Holmes completeists should read this, and it won't bore; but it's not, IMO, Doyle's best work in the canon. ...more

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