In which Holmes uncovers the truth beneath a simple murder. The Boscombe Valley Mystery is the fourth short story collected within The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. First published in the Strand Magazine in 1891, it takes Holmes and Watson away from their familiar London streets out into the English countryside. Called to investigate by Lestrade, Holmes learns that…
In which begins a story with end and no end, middle and no middle, beginning and no beginning. Never has a novel taken me so long to complete as Naked Lunch. I can’t pretend that’s due to the ups and downs of lockdown or the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since starting the book months…
In which Holmes and Watson meet a fiery pawnbroker whose luck has run out. The Red-Headed League was considered by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle as the second-best of his Holmes stories when reflecting on his output in 1927. It’s hard to disagree with the author, as this adventure, in particular, has remained in my memory…
In which the woman and author change the game. Though we often think of Sherlock Holmes as a character of short stories, it wasn’t until his third outing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle moved into the medium. The author would write a further 55 stories alongside 4 novels – beginning with A Study in Scarlet and The…
In which we travel back to the 1990’s, but all is not as we remember. Although it feels like I’ve I know every scene, I can’t remember a time when I’ve ever sat through the full runtime of 2005’s V for Vendetta film adaptation. Unlike Alan Moore’s Watchman, which I’ve re-read many times over, shared with friends…
Written in 1885, King Solomon’s Mines is an adventure novel following Allan Quartermain as he travels across an uncharted Africa searching for a lost man and a mythical treasure. At face value, it’s as simple as that, though like the titular diamond mine there is more buried beneath the surface.The novel holds an odd place in…
The Yellow M is the sixth volume, but third story in the long-running Blake and Mortimer series. Following on from two longer stories, published over three and then two volumes, The Yellow M is often confusingly found as book number one due to its reprint by Cinebook. All that number fun aside, The Yellow M is easily the most famous of…
Once again, it’s time to delve into my complete Sherlock Holmes collection for another mystery with the world’s most famous detective. This time, it’s The Sign of Four, sometimes called The Sign of the Four but who really cares, there are four people and they make a sign. Unlike the more celebrated Holmes novels, A Study…
After a short break from reading, I’m thrilled to return to my Library series today and to one of the most compelling novels of all time. A perfect way to start reading again, thanks to its short yet intense burst of genius, A Clockwork Orange is an unparalleled masterpiece. A Clockwork Orange was the…
My first introduction to The Thirty-Nine Steps was through the 1935 Hitchcock thriller, The 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It’s one of my Dad’s favourite films and I remember the excitement of Richard Hannay escaping north from London, evading capture at the Forth Bridge and trekking across the Scottish landscape to…