This is called a “mystery” in the title, but I think it would have made more sense to have called it, as Watson dubbed most of Holmes’s early cases, an “adventure.” Holmes himself isn’t involved, having been sent away by Watson for some much needed rest and recuperation, and the story has our narrator heading off alone to Wiltshire and the usual pile of a country estate, apparently to act as a sort of bodyguard for Sir Harry Fairfax, the sixth baronet of Darkwater Hall. Sir Harry had sent one of the local peasants, a degenerate churl by the name of Black Ralph, to jail (or gaol, as they say in the old country), and now that Ralph is out he is apparently gunning for revenge.
Watson, using skills picked up from assisting Holmes, is able to figure out some elementary things and in the end he stops Ralph from killing Harry, though not without a bit of luck. There’s no mystery to any of this though. The only mysterious business going on is the S&M playacting that the lord and lady are up to, and Watson just blunders his way into finding out what that’s all about. Otherwise, this seemed a pointless sort of a story, interesting mainly for being written by Kingsley Amis and for the sexy subtext (it was first published in Playboy). This latter point shouldn’t be held against it though because Playboy really was a magazine worth reading, back in the day. When you were done looking at the pictures.
Alex Good 
Ah Playboy, the ‘I only get it for the articles’ mag 🤣 is it still about?
LikeLike
Apparently the print version of the magazine was trying to make a comeback. I don’t know what the status of that is.
Playboy really did have good articles and interviews!
LikeLiked by 1 person
🤣🤣🤣
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m surprised there isn’t a sub-genre of fanfic called Watsonfic. Where Holmes isn’t involved at all and it is all about Watson.
I would not be a fan of that though, fyi.
LikeLike
Yeah, he’s not a great leading man.
LikeLiked by 1 person
speaking of fanfics, would you consider the bbc tv show Sherlock (with Dr Cumberstrange) to be fanfic? I don’t but I can’t nail down why.
LikeLike
Isn’t fanfic amateur stuff? Or at least it starts out that way. I think the Sherlock series was more a modern adaptation. I wouldn’t call it fanfic.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The amateur aspect definitely plays a role. That might be why I don’t consider the tv show in that regards.
LikeLike
Kingsley Amis (as Robert Markham) wrote Colonel Sun, the first post-Fleming Bond book, which is way too awful for a guy who also wrote a couple of non-fiction Bond books.
Playboy published “The Fly,” which I’m going to be re-reading soon. They did that great interview with John Lennon, that was subsequently published as a little book that I got out of the library, in which he gives his thoughts on every Beatles song. They put out several anthologies of stories from the magazine. I know I’ve got the Horror anthology (that’s where I first found “The Fly”). They had lots of good stuff. Plus they had Lillian Müller and Candy Loving and…..
LikeLike
I haven’t read Colonel Sun, but I’ve been disappointed by everything I’ve read by Amis, pere et fils. But I haven’t given them a whole lot of rope.
I’ve got a Playboy anthology of true crime. And a coffee table book that I think came out on its fiftieth anniversary. Say what you will about Hefner, but aside from the content it was also a very attractively laid out and produced magazine.
LikeLike