Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #232462 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-23
• Released on: 2009-06-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780312538125
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Robertson's engaging debut, the first in a projected series, offers one of the more original premises involving the Sherlock Holmes character. London solicitor Reggie Heath, who's just leased office space on Baker Street, finds his obligations include making sure letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes at 221B are answered, if with formulaic replies. After a senior clerk is bludgeoned to death and Heath's younger ne'er-do-well brother disappears, the lawyer suspects both events are connected to a letter an eight-year-old girl, Mara Ramirez, sent nearly 20 years earlier asking the great detective to locate her missing father. Heath follows the trail to Los Angeles, where he succeeds in tracking down Mara and learns current crimes may be connected with her father's disappearance. Readers will want to spend more time with the appealing Heath and company, but the conceit of having future mysteries to solve based on letters to Baker Street may be hard to sustain. (June)
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From Booklist
It’s a well-known and rather curious fact that some people write letters to fictional characters, that fictional creations can become so real that someone can actually believe they exist. Robertson, a first-time author, takes that premise and runs with it. Brothers Reggie and Nigel Heath are a couple of London lawyers whose offices are located in the 200 block of Baker Street. Their lease requires them to answer all letters addressed to Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street. Nigel opens one such letter, and soon he’s gone, disappeared, leaving behind a dead body and a whole lot of confusion. Next thing you know, Reggie is on a plane to Los Angeles, tracking down his brother and solving a decades-old mystery. This is a very entertaining novel, lighthearted but with a solid story, and mystery fans, whether they’re Sherlock Holmes addicts or not, will thoroughly enjoy it. The book is billed as the first entry in a new series, and, judging by this installment, it should be a popular series indeed. --David Pitt

Review

Customer Reviews

5-star premise; 3-star execution
It's a great idea -- that one of the modern office buildings that now occupy the space on the northernmost stretch of Baker Street where Sherlock Holmes once hung his deerstalker hat now has an obligation to respond to letters addressed to the great detective at 221B Baker Street, a century or so after his battles with criminals like the infamous Moriarty were last published. In this detective novel, which is far more cozy than Holmesian, the duty of replying to that correspondence (with a form letter) falls to a law firm run by Reggie Heath; the duty is discharged by his brother, Nigel, waiting to be reinstated with the law society after some well-intended deeds had unexpected consequences. Nigel, it seems, hasn't learned his lesson, as the exasperated Reggie realizes early in the book, when Nigel fails to show up at his reinstatement hearing. He's somehow become unduly fascinated with the Holmes correspondence, and has dashed off to Los Angeles to help an 8-year-old girl who wrote a letter pleading for help finding her father more than a decade earlier. The problem? Not only does making direct contact with these letter writers violate the terms of the Heath lease, but Nigel has left a dead body behind in his office, brained with his prize Remington sculpture.

The concept is great fun, but the plotting and writing skills fall short of what is needed to pull this off. There are some very obvious plot devices, as Reggie goes chasing after Nigel to retrieve him, only to stumble headlong into more mystery and murder. Robertson seems to be trying to emulate the style of Alexander McCall Smith's excellent Mma Ramotswe mystery stories, but Robertson's characters never appealed to me as much -- they never felt as vivid or alive as McCall Smith's, just self-consciously quirky. The writing is pedestrian and too often clunky and uneven. When Reggie discovers Nigel's disappearance, he sees a group of people clustered around his brother's office, peers in through its window and sees chaos: file cabinet drawers hanging by their hinges, books on the floor and papers everywhere. "Nigel had gone off again," is all that Robertson can muster in terms of an insight into Reggie's state of mind. Wow, no kidding. The intent could be to make the reader see Reggie's limited emotional range, but if so, it doesn't work. Robertson hasn't mastered irony or nuance. The plot may be an intriguing one, but I found myself having to work to follow it. The requisite twists and turns in the mystery didn't always work well, either -- no spoilers here, except to say that the presence of later and possibly forged letters from the young girl, Mara Ramirez, is introduced in the earliest pages and then not raised again for more than 100 pages, even though that seems to be at the hub of the mystery. There are too many loose ends left to dangle for too long to make this work for me as a mystery reader.

I don't think fans of Sherlock Holmes (or his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle) will get as big a charge from the book's contents as they will from the premise. It might appeal to readers who enjoy cozy mysteries, although I wouldn't rank it among the best offerings in that genre, either. Mystery fans who favor "cozies" may still find something to enjoy if they're looking for something a bit different, but I'd strongly suggest finding a library copy or at least waiting until it's out in paperback. For my part, I'm off to re-read the original Sherlock Holmes mysteries, to remind myself of Conan Doyle's skill with character and plot.

enjoyable refreshing spin to the Holmes universe
In 1997 Solicitor Reggie Heath signs a lease to rent office space on Baker Street. As part of the rental agreement, the attorney is responsible for responding to requests from people writing to Sherlock Holmes at 221B Baker Street. Reggie figures the letters are a humorous irritant so assigns the answers to his clerk, his younger brother Nigel suspended from legal practice due to misconduct.

Nigel takes the pleas for help seriously and tries to respond with more than a platitude. He is especially fixated on a "pen pal" Mara Ramirez who sent a note to Mr. Holmes two decades ago when she was eight and her mom was missing. Nigel and senior clerk Robert Ocher often argue especially how to respond as the latter wants as little time spent on the Holmes correspondence as possible. Robert is soon killed by a knife in Nigel's office while Nigel has vanished. Reggie knows his sibling is missing some brain pixels, but believes he is not a killer yet still fears these two events are tied to Mara. He travels to Los Angeles not sure what to expect; what he did not was having LAPD arrest him on charges of homicide.

This is an enjoyable refreshing spin to the Holmes universe though when it comes to sleuthing neither brother is on a par with Watson let alone the great literary detective as a distracted Nigel is always in trouble and Reggie is a somewhat bumbling amateur sleuth. The story line is fast-paced from the moment Nigel reads the first letter from Mara and never slows down until the final Los Angeles confrontation. Readers will enjoy this fine modern day spin to the Baker Street cosmos.

Harriet Klausner

Interesting characters, unioque premise
Although some of the plotting seemed contrived and a bit too coincidental, the characters were most interesting, and I look forward to meeting them again. Reggie's new-found self awareness leaves plenty of room for exploration. There is some "witty repartee" and a cool dog, beautiful women and misunderstandings galore. I can't imagine anyone would expect deep revelations from this genre, but it was entertaining and fun.