Play Book Tag discussion

The Return of the Pharaoh - Meyer
Audio performance by David Robb
3 stars

I do still need to read The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, but I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell, another Holmes pastiche by this author. Unfortunately, I could never really connect with this story.

In 1910, Dr Watson and his second wife, Julia, decide to winter in Egypt on the advice of her doctor. She will receive treatment for her tuberculosis at a famous clinic while Watson plays the tourist. Inevitably, Watson encounters an undercover Holmes who is in Egypt searching for a missing nobleman.

There was so much of this story that felt awkwardly contrived. Watson’s attitude toward his wife and her condition was probably an attempt to display contemporary attitudes of the changing times, but it occupied too much of the narrative and slowed the action of the investigation. The story is set well before the discovery of Tut’s tomb although there was even at that time a growing interest in Egyptology. I found the apparent Holmesian disinterest in the subject annoying and not at all likely.

I enjoyed the introduction of Howard Carter as a character, but I could still feel the author’s pen too much to find his presence believable. The catastrophic sand storm/train wreck was exciting; the only part of the book that captured my complete attention. Truthfully, I never cared at all about the missing English nobleman and his quest for Egyptian gold.

The real problem I had with this book was that I was missing Amelia Peabody. I cued up my audiobook edition of Crocodile on the Sandbank for a repeated listen as soon as Holmes had solved his case.