The six stories in Orlando Pearson’s The Redacted Sherlock Holmes Volume III are a mixed bag. In some stories, such as and “The Book-Thief and the Blitz,” Holmes seems slow and withdrawn. In fact, Watson reports at one point,” Holmes spent the time we had in a daze.”
The stories range from good (“Some Parisian Hot-Desking”) to dull (“The Book-Thief and the Blitz”) to outright strange (“The Sussex Factotum”).
“Some Parisian Hot-Desking” has Watson and Holmes cornering and catching Sebastian Moran. Moran was second-in-command to Professor James Moriarty in the original Holmes canon. This story is well done.
In “A Christmas Carol” Homes makes good use of his propensity for disguises to woo a maid and thus get access to a house and solve his case.
“The Book-Thief and the Blitz” had Holmes and Watson away from London to help decode German messages during World War II. Holmes is not at his best in this story. As noted before, Watson even remarks that Holmes seems “in a daze.” A good portion of this story delves rather more deeply into breaking the German codes than necessary.
“The Sussex Factotum” deals with implications of the aberrant sexual proclivities of Eric Gill, a prosperous sculptor. This story is an instance where Holmes agrees with his brother, Mycroft, that doing nothing is probably the best option.
“The Doctor and the Demon” has the game of cricket at its center. Granted, we Americans may not be apprised of all the rules of this inimitable English sport. However, having Dr. Watson describe the game to Holmes slows the story down.
Enjoyable Read
All in all, I enjoyed the stories in The Redacted Sherlock Holmes Volume III well enough. But, in my opinion, Holmes could have been sharpened up a bit. He seemed sluggish in a few of the stories as mentioned above. Dr. Watson’s narration of the stories was well done.