The Trial of Sherlock Holmes
Being a huge Sherlock Holmes nerd, I’m always leery when a new story is released. Perhaps it’s because Jeremy Brett completely defined Holmes with his depiction of the character. Or perhaps it’s because most books that come out these days involving the original “World’s Greatest Detective” are borderline fan-fiction with the authors throwing Holmes and Watson into the mix with familiar characters like Inspector Lestrade and Professor Moriarty and a handful of Holmes cliches. I assumed that with not one but two Hollywood Holmes pictures currently in development we’d be seeing a whole new crop of books, comics, games, and other assorted cash-ins. And yeah, I was right. Books have been hitting shelves, comics are on the stands, game releases are being ramped up, and Holmes mania is bound to reach some sort of nerdy fever pitch by the time Guy Ritchie’s movie hits theaters.
This isn’t all a bad thing, mind you. I personally think Sherlock Holmes gets short shrift these days, especially now that every other television show is some sort of CSI or Law & Order knock off. All these shows, with their emphasis on clues and deductive reasoning, owe a ton to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant sleuth. And some of the new releases have been pretty good, if not great. Take the Holmes games by Frogwares, for example. The Awakened was a spectacular title not just for Holmes geeks like myself, but for adventure gamers in general.
Other efforts, like The Crimes of Dr. Watson, have been less than successful in their endeavors to recreate the world of Holmes. While a great concept (an untold Holmes caper that the reader must solve by analyzing clues and letters), the end result was pretty lackluster.
Somewhere in between comes the new Sherlock Holmes comic by Dynamite Entertainment. Written by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with art and colors by Aaron Campbell and Tony Avina respectively, the first issue sets up a rather intriguing caper with only a couple stumbles. Entitled “The Trial of Sherlock Holmes”, the story begins with an explosion in London, followed by a request for Holmes to watch guard over a former police commissioner whose life has been threatened. As the title suggests, by the end of the first issue, Holmes finds himself in some hot water through some very mysterious circumstances. Peppered within the story are some of the aforementioned Holmes cliches. Holmes comments on Watson smelling of French cigarettes, a visiting foreign diplomat is referenced, and of course Inspector Lestrade is a key character. These are minor distractions, however, as the premise is interesting enough to keep things moving. The dialog is mostly faithful to Doyle’s original works, with a few meandering bits, and the cliffhanger ending is intriguing enough, despite being fairly predictable.
The back cover is plastered with testimonials from respected writers like Ed Brubaker and J. Michael Stracynski, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sway my decision to give this a shot. I’m glad I did, however, and hope that the series will continue to get better as it moves along. In the meantime, if you’re a Holmes fan, or a mystery fan, give this one a shot.
Read the Holmes stories for free here.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Did you ever get around to playing Sherlock Holmes Nemesis? It’s great, and the duel of the minds presented between Holmes and Arsene Lupin is pretty awesome. Also, Sherlock Holmes Vs. Jack The Ripper is coming soon, but you should really try out Nemesis. It’s one of my favorite adventure games of the last few years.
May 4th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
No I didn’t, unfortunately. I never made it all the way through The Awakened, though I got pretty far into it. I hope to get back to that in the near future.
May 4th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
This article reminded me of a most wonderful website I plan on abusing (and probably donating to) thoroughly once my Kindle2 arrives.
The website is http://www.gutenberg.org
The idea behind this site, is that they catalog books no longer protected by copyright, and offer them free for download in the form of ebooks (and I believe some audio-books, great for road-trips). They claim to have over 28,000 books available free for download, including works from Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Shakespear, Carroll Lewis and a plethora of other apparently popular authors I’ve never even heard of.
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top#authors-last30
So, if you want to read up on some Sherlock Holmes (or… whatever), gutenberg.org is easy, free, and legal. In fact, someone should do an article about gutenberg.org for robotpanic.com to spread the literary wealth.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:57 am
What a coincidence! I just read a Holmes story last night from Gutenberg using Stanza on my iPhone.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I didn’t realize that Steve Gutenberg was into books.
That Three Men and a Little Lady money must have finally run out.