After “The Final Problem” you could be forgiven for thinking it was over for Sherlock Holmes. Not so much because the famous detective had apparently plunged to his death from the top of the Reichenbach Falls, but because Doyle had said he was done with him. What’s more, there were good reasons for believing he meant it. Many of the stories he’d written leading up to that “final” episode had been uninspired efforts, not worth bothering with.  Doyle himself clearly wanted to move on.

Which makes it all the more surprising that he did bring Holmes back in his greatest adventure and, as Christopher Frayling puts it in his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, “one of the greatest crime novels ever written . . . if not the greatest.” Normally, when a writer or any artist feels so checked out, you don’t expect them to bounce back. But perhaps the amount of downtime helped in this case. “The Final Problem” had come out in 1893 and The Hound of the Baskervilles was published in 1901. That was a lot of time off and it seems to have allowed Doyle to fully recharge. He did write several novels and numerous stories in the interim, little of which has lasted, but when he brought Holmes back (and that was not, initially, his plan) it was with a renewed sense of energy.

Doyle’s energy is mirrored by Holmes’s enthusiasm in taking up the Baskerville case. You can hear it in his voice when Dr. Mortimer tells him how he judged from the amount of cigar ash dropped on the ground how long Sir Charles had stood by a wicket-gate. “Excellent!” Holmes cries. “This is a colleague, Watson, after our own heart.” The analysis of footprints (which Mortimer has also observed) and cigar ash being two of Holmes’s three favourite go-to clues. The other, in case you’re interested, being handwriting, which also comes into play here.

A second jolt of excitement is felt when Holmes finds out that the killer who has been stalking Sir Henry in London told his cabman that he was a detective and that his name was Sherlock Holmes. “The cunning rascal!” Holmes exclaims. “I tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel.” The game’s afoot and Holmes is loving it. As a reader, how can you not share his joy?

Aside from the form the clues take there are other familiar elements. Holmes talks about his method, for example, saying things like “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” It goes without saying that it is those unobserved-because-obvious things that are of supreme importance. Then a page later he tells us that “a concentrated atmosphere helps a concentration of thought.” This is a point he hasn’t pushed “to the length of getting into a box to think, but that is the logical outcome of my convictions.” Unlike his point about observing the obvious I think we can take this as more of an eccentricity. He’s on firmer ground when he responds to Dr. Mortimer’s accusation of guesswork by claiming that his method inhabits “the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculations.” That’s excellent advice. But as a final example, his claim that “It is the first quality of a criminal investigator that he should see through a disguise” may make us think of how badly he was embarrassed in A Study in Scarlet when he didn’t recognize a healthy young man disguised as a little old lady.

There are also some slips, of the kind that keep annotators active. The most glaring of these is the way the hound is painted in phosphorous. Not bloody likely! But we should keep in mind that Doyle didn’t care very much about such mistakes. “I have never been nervous about details,” he wrote, “and one must be masterful sometimes.”

And it is a masterful performance. Despite Holmes himself disappearing from the middle part of the book the pace never flags as. Watson himself points to how, near the end of his stay at Baskerville Hall, “these strange events began to move swiftly towards their terrible conclusion.” Even having read this book many times I still find it a page-turner. The business with the stolen clothing is a great hook, as is the motif of the net, with Holmes and Watson as both the hunters and the hunted. There’s also an interesting class element to pick up on. When Mortimer names the “only men of education” in the neighbourhood we know these are the only real suspects, as early British detective fiction rarely paid much attention to the “peasants” (as they are always referred to here). And finally there’s the odd treatment of the escaped convict Selden. In film adaptations they often try to soften this character, as someone with the mind of a child or some such disability. But Doyle paints him as a wicked man, someone who was spoiled growing up and then sank “lower and lower” until he is now little better than a beast. In our only glimpse of him he appears as “an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed and scored with vile passions.” This does not, however, stop Watson and Sir Henry agreeing to allow him to escape. A reciprocal sense of loyalty to one’s loyal servants apparently went a long way.

A real treat then – in my opinion the best of the Holmes adventures and a landmark work in its own right. Because the story takes place before the events of “The Final Problem” it wasn’t necessary to explain Holmes’s escape, but I think it’s just as remarkable anyway how Doyle was able to bring him back from the dead.

Holmes index

Fun fact, when this story was first published in the U.S., in serial form, it was under the title “Murder at the Vicarage.” This despite the fact that Christie had already written a Miss Marple novel with the same name. I wonder what was going on there. Was she being lazy? Forgetful?

Another bit of background: the story was auctioned as part of a Westminster Abbey restoration appeal. Maybe that explains why the body is discovered in a church. Because otherwise I didn’t find the explanation for that part very convincing.

It is a terrible story. The only good part was the description of Miss Marple and Bunch as survivors of the linen sale. This was the first of the Marple stories where I honestly didn’t care what was going on and so wasn’t paying much attention when it came time for Miss Marple to wrap things up. A waste of time even for her biggest fans.

Marple index

If you’ve read around in any of Agatha Christie’s work you know that one of the things that characterizes her mysteries is their theatrical nature. Murder is rarely a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing. It’s not just planned and premeditated but scripted, along with prepared costumes and very exact timings built into the plot.

If you’re playing along at home, these mysteries are often the most difficult to figure out. You may correctly guess whodunit but throw your hands up at how they did it because the “how” is so layered. One of the prime instances of this is Death on the Nile, but this short story is another good example. I think I knew right away who was going to kill Miss Greenshaw, and the way the murder was presented was so ridiculously dramatic made clear that it was being stage-directed, but I didn’t have it all figured out. In part because I don’t think that would be possible based on the evidence we’re given. As one critic remarked, this story is “a notable example of Miss Marple’s habit of drawing solutions from a hat, with hardly a trace of why or wherefore.”

At least the murderer had the good sense not to leave the body in the library. We’d already been down that road before with Miss Marple, and it was as much a cliché as it was then as it clearly is here. “The only thing the library needs is a body,” the collector of “monstrosities” opines. “Those old-fashioned detective stories about murder in the library” knew what they were about. So instead we settle for the drawing room. Bonus points though if you know what the reference to “Paul and Virginia” is to. They are, apparently, the subjects rendered in a “colossal bronze” found in the library of Greenshaw’s Folly. My guess is that they represent the lovers in an eighteenth-century French novel of the same name.

Marple index

At one point in the book Pale Horse Rider Mark Jacobson describes the scene in Oliver Stone’s JFK where crusading DA Jim Garrison (Keven Costner) gets a crash course in conspiracy theories from Mr. X (Donald Sutherland) while they sit on a bench with a view of the Washington Monument. Painting a picture of the setting, Jacobson has them “dwarfed by the upward thrust of the lingamic monument.”

I’ve often heard the Washington Monument described as “phallic” but “lingamic” was a new one for me. For once, a knowledge of Greek or Latin won’t help you. The word derives from the Sanskrit lingam, which is an aniconic phallic representation traditionally worshipped as a symbol of or in connection with Shiva. Or, in a secondary meaning, it’s a penis. So basically the word means phallic. But it’s most often used in reference to religious statuary: “a short cylindrical pillar-like symbol of Shiva, made of stone, metal, gem, wood, clay or precious stones.” These pillars also usually have a circular base, which the Washington Monument does have if you see it from above.

I suspect Jacobson just wanted to avoid the cliché of a phallic Washington Monument so he went with a word that had a more exotic flavour. And he certainly got that, as I don’t think lingamic is an adjective you see used very often. And I can’t say I’ll be adopting it anytime soon myself.

Words, words, words

In “The Greek Interpreter” Doyle shook things up a bit by introducing Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. In “The Final Problem” (published only a few month later) Mycroft has a cameo as a cab driver but of more importance is the introduction of Professor James Moriarty.

These two characters would go on to have a huge importance in later Holmes mythology, but I find it interesting that Doyle himself didn’t make much out of either. They are only referred to in a handful of stories in the canon, and usually don’t have any significant role to play.

In “The Final Problem,” however, Moriarty does have a critical function, which was to kill off Holmes and thus free Doyle to write what he thought were more important literary works. As we know, that didn’t take, but it does show a real spirit of idealism given how much money writing Holmes stories was bringing in.

It’s a different sort of Holmes story in that there’s no mystery to be solved but just a game of cat and mouse between Holmes and Moriarty that ends with the two of them plunging, presumably to their deaths, from the Reichenbach Falls.

That dramatic plunge is one of the iconic moments in all of fiction, so much so that I think all of us can picture it in our memories. We might also be thinking of any of the many illustrations of the scene, beginning with different versions in both the original British and American publications. Re-reading the story for the first time in a long while I was actually surprised to find that Watson didn’t witness the event at all. He’s been sidelined and only returns to the Falls after the fact to find some footprints in the blackish soil and an awkward note from Holmes explaining what was about to happen. After that, we’re told that an “examination by experts leaves little doubt that a personal contest between the two men ended, as it could hardly fail to end in such a situation, in their reeling over, locked in each other’s arms.”

That must have been quite an expert examination! What did they base their conclusions on, especially given that neither of the bodies was ever recovered? The only evidence for what occurred were the footprints and the note, which don’t paint a very full picture.

So as it turns out, one of the most iconic moments in all of fiction is one that’s wholly imagined. Unless you’re reading an illustrated version there’s nothing of it on the page. And Doyle could have easily arranged things so Watson sees the fatal plunge from a distance. Was he leaving himself an out? Or just playing a game? Even though this isn’t one of my favourite Holmes stories it remains one of the most intriguing.

Holmes index

Lew Archer is a bit out of his usual L.A. stomping grounds here. While on his way to Sacramento he stops for “the ghastliest hitchhiker who ever thumbed me.” This turns out to be a young man who has been shot and left for dead in a ditch by the road. And just like that Archer is involved in a complicated web of murder and corruption in the sleepy town of Las Cruces.

Two things stood out to me. First of all there’s the speed with which the plot unfolds. It got to the point where I started to write down Archer’s full Las Cruces itinerary. He picks up the dying man just as the sun is setting “and the valley was filling with twilight.” From there he takes the man to Kerrigan’s Court – Deluxe Motor Hotel (it is later described as a “motor court”; the word “motel” was first used in 1925 but seems not to be known by anyone here). From the motel he goes to the hospital, where the hitchhiker dies without regaining consciousness and being able to say what had happened to him. Then Archer goes back to the motel, or motor court. Then he goes to a Chinese restaurant and eavesdrops on a conversation between Kerrigan (the motel’s owner) and a sexy young chanteuse. Then he visits the trucking company the dead man drove for. Then he goes out to the house where the owner of the trucking company lives and gets hired by him to find out what happened to the load of booze the dead man had been driving. Then he goes to the sheriff’s house and meets the sheriff’s sexy wife. Then he goes to the apartment of the daughter of the owner of the trucking company. She has gone missing. Then he goes to a sleazy bar and interrogates one of the prostitutes about the missing girl. Then he goes to the singer’s apartment. Then he goes to the motel owner’s house, remaking that by this time “it was getting late.” Then he goes to a drive-in burger joint where he witnesses what looks like a handoff of some money. Then he goes to an abandoned air base just outside of town. At around 1 o’clock in the morning he’s back at the motor court, where he gets knocked out (or at least knocked on his ass) for the third time. Then he goes back to the motel owner’s house. We’re told it’s now 2 o’clock. The motel owner’s wife sends him off to check out a cabin on a lake two hours’ drive away. On the way there exhaustion (finally!) catches up to him and “something broke like a capsule behind my eyes. It leaked darkness through my brain and numbness through my body.” He keeps driving until he comes to a tourist camp where he rents a cottage and spends the rest of the night (or early morning) “wrestling nightmares on a lumpy bed.”

This is a busy guy! And even given Las Cruces isn’t that big a place I still found it hard to believe he was going so many places and meeting so many people in the space of at most eight hours. But that’s the nature of stories like this.

The scenes are set with some quick brushstrokes. Macdonald is particularly fond of personifying buildings, so one will have yellow rust streaks running “down from the balconies like iron tears” while another sports “a peeling yellow face with blinded windows, surrounded by a wild green hair of eucalyptus trees.” I also loved this description of the owner of the trucking business’s man cave:

His living-room was the kind of room you find in backcountry ranch-houses where old men hold the last frontier against women and civilization and hygiene. The carpets and furniture were glazed with dirt. Months of wood ashes clogged the fireplace and sifted onto the floor. The double-barreled shotgun over the mantel was the only clean and cared-for object in the room.

We’re even told that the place smells like a bear cage, which I can believe.

Information in these wonderfully degenerate settings will be conveyed in clipped dialogue with lots of snappy comebacks, and may end in fisticuffs. And then it’s time to hop in the car and go to the next stop.

The second thing that struck me was the evocation of a now long-vanished time. In part this has to do with the language, so I’ll include some notes here for fellow word nerds. “Wasn’t he drunk on Sunday?” Archer asks the singer of the motel owner. “He was pixilated all right,” she replies. This does not mean that the motel owner has the appearance of being an enlarged, low-resolution digital image where the individual pixels stand out, giving it a blocky texture. The word for that is pixelated, though apparently pixilated is now accepted as a variant spelling of the same thing. Anyway, pixilated is a much older word referring to someone behaving in a strange, eccentric or mentally disordered way, as though being led by pixies. Obviously the singer has in mind this older meaning, but even so it seems a bit inappropriate to describe someone who is actually an angry and dangerous drunk.

At another point Archer is driving over a rough road whose “surface was pitted with chuckholes.” I had to look this up and found that it refers to any hole or rut in a road or track. So a pothole. I’ve never seen or heard the word chuckhole before and I don’t think it’s in wide use.

I was far less successful tracking down the term “sluff.” At one point Archer interrogates a drugged out girl who asks him “Are you sluff?” From the context I think she’s asking if he’s with the police. Later, her boyfriend will beat Archer up and say “God damn you, sluff.” So again, I think he’s saying that he thinks Archer is a cop. But I looked around for any information on this one and found nothing except dictionaries giving it as a variant spelling of “slough,” which is clearly not what was meant.

Aside from the language, there are also some other parts of the book that give its date away. In The Way Some People Die Macdonald had indulged his dislike for the drug business by giving us a heroin junkie going through withdrawal. There’s another druggie in this book but she’s hooked on marijuana and she really needs a reefer bad. I think in our own time we’d be put off by such a depiction of “reefer madness” (the film of that title had come out in 1936), as while marijuana can be addictive in most cases it isn’t, and certainly not to the extent depicted here. The scene plays today as silly, but luckily Archer has some reefers in his car (hey, it’s evidence) and he’s able to use it to get her to open up. Which is kind of low, but worse will happen to her later.

There are the usual Archer elements here, especially his fascination with breasts. The sheriff’s wife is stacked, “heavy-breasted and very female, almost too female for comfort.” Later, while he is holding onto her, these same breasts will move “against me like wild things in a net,” and later still she will grip them “cruelly” herself. I don’t know what’s going on with all this. Boobs just have a way of grabbing Macdonald’s attention.

And finally there’s Archer’s sense of mission. Told that he’s brave at one point, he replies “Not brave. Merely stubborn. I don’t like to see the jerks and hustlers get away with too much. Or they might take over entirely.” The jerks and the hustlers, however, aren’t the real problem here. They rarely are. Instead the rot runs deeper, into perverted family dynamics and degenerate psychologies. Archer can afford to be understanding, but is no doubt relieved to finally get out of this town.

Archer index