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His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes, #8)

Arthur Conan Doyle

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Jul 11, 2020 Werner rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime-fiction, classics

My Goodreads friend Steve Haywood and I agreed, early this year, to read this collection together this month as a buddy read. He wanted to do a story collection; and I suggested this one, since I knew it was the only remaining book in the Holmes canon that I hadn't officially read. So, on turning the last page, I marked another literary milestone, completing an odyssey begun in childhood; there are no more original Sherlock Holmes stories to read for the first time!

As it turned out, there probab My Goodreads friend Steve Haywood and I agreed, early this year, to read this collection together this month as a buddy read. He wanted to do a story collection; and I suggested this one, since I knew it was the only remaining book in the Holmes canon that I hadn't officially read. So, on turning the last page, I marked another literary milestone, completing an odyssey begun in childhood; there are no more original Sherlock Holmes stories to read for the first time!

As it turned out, there probably weren't any more I hadn't read even before I turned the first page. :-) Of the eight stories in this edition, the only one I possibly hadn't previously read elsewhere was "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" --I'm not sure if I'd actually read the story itself or just had very vivid memories of the adaptation on the old PBS Mystery! series, starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. (In any case, the ending of the actual story differs significantly from that of the adaptation --and I like Doyle's better than the scriptwriters'.) Had I known this, I might not have suggested the book as a buddy read, since I rarely reread books, and the read did prove to be very quick on my end; but I did reread or closely skim most of the stories this time, and that actually proved to be quite worthwhile, because in the years since reading most of these, I'd forgotten a number of significant details, which I enjoyed re-discovering! ("The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" was the only one I didn't reread, having just read it last year and commented on it in my review of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, where it originally appeared. It wasn't included in the original, 1917 British edition of this collection; but it did appear in the 1917 American edition published by Doran, of which this edition is a quality reprint.)

Unlike some reviewers, I find the quality of Doyle's work throughout the Holmes canon pretty consistent, and this collection is much of a piece, in style and quality, with the preceding and following ones. Holmes and Watson are their usual vividly-drawn selves, and their camaraderie and friendship adds to the enjoyment of the stories. The mysteries are solved by the application of rational deduction accompanied by minute observation of detail, but the settings and story elements often, in Romantic fashion, incorporate the exotic, the scary and the "grotesque" --a word which our heroes discuss at the beginning of "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge," with, as it turns out, good reason. :-) All of these stories are set in England, but they may be very much subject to sinister foreign influences: the past outrages of a Central American dictatorship, the activities of southern Italy's organized crime, poison used by African witch doctors. Even in England, the Gothic and sinister may not be absent; Doyle's evocation of the Cornish seacoast and moors in "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot" would be at home in the Romantic novels of Blackmore or Du Maurier. (Doyle uses description with more skill than readers sometimes notice.)

Attempting to comment on the individual stories can be difficult without divulging spoilers (that's particularly true in the case of "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"). I can mention that "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" is noteworthy in the Holmes canon as being one of only two in which Holmes' brother Mycroft appears. From the beginning of the title story, set just on the eve of World War I in August 1914, it's obvious that this one deals with pre-war German espionage. Written as it was during the war, its treatment of German characters is colored by wartime attitudes towards the enemy; and in hindsight we can say that it's very unlikely that the German government was consciously planning the war since 1910, and that even its date would have been predictable to their agents! The story is also notable, though, as the only Holmes story I recall with actual explicit references to God (in two places); though Doyle wasn't a Christian, the war --and especially the death of his son in it-- tended to move his thoughts in a more spiritual direction. (Ironically, though, the hope he puts in Holmes' mouth, "...a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared," proved to be illusory; the moral and spiritual effects of the Great War on England, and the West generally, were almost entirely demoralizing.) My favorite story in the book is probably "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot," but all of them are well-written and rewarding.

This edition is enhanced by an appended Selected Bibliography of Doyle's works (it fills about two and a half pages, since he wrote prolifically, including long and short fiction and nonfiction), and a four and a half page About the Author biographical note, which is worthwhile and informative. A must for Doyle fans, I'd recommend the collection to any fans of traditional mystery stories. ...more

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