Die Augen der Heather Grace

Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Joseph Bell #1

by David Pirie

Sie ist jung und schön: Heather Grace, eine der ersten Patientinnen, die den jungen Arzt Arthur Conan Doyle aufsuchen. Doyle ist verwirrt, nicht nur wegen ihrer Schönheit, sondern auch wegen ihrer Visionen von einem Phantom, die sie immer öfter heimsuchen. Bald jedoch lenkt ein viel schwerwiegenderer Fall Doyle ab: der Mord an einem reichen Geschäftsmann. Doyle selbst gerät in Verdacht. Hilfesuchend wendet er sich an seinen alten Mentor, den brillanten Dr Joseph Bell. Dieser findet bald heraus, dass der Schlüssel zur Lösung des Rätsels in der Tat in den Augen der Heather Grace liegt ...

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical Mystery, Crime, Historical, Thriller

333 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

David Pirie was a journalist and film critic before he became a screenwriter. Just a few of his numerous credits are the BAFTA nominated adaptation for the BBC of The Woman in White and his collaboration with Lars Von Trier on the script of the Oscar nominated film Breaking the Waves. David Pirie lives in Somerset.

Reviews

[Viola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man vienmēr ir patikuši A.K.Doila stāsti par Š.Holmsu. Šī vēsturiskā detektīva galvenie tēli ir A.K.Doils, tajā brīdī vēl jauns medicīnas students un viņa pasniedzējs Edinburgas universitātē - Dr. Dž. Bels, kurš,kā uzskata daudzi literatūras pētnieki, ir bijis Holmsa prototips. Kopumā prasmīgi samudžināta detektīvintriga,kurā zinātāji var pamanīt arī kādas ŠH stāstu iezīmes.

[Aleshanee · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Sterne

Meine Meinung

Nachdem ich letztens bei "Der Fall Moriarty" schon ein Sherlock Holmes Buch ohne Sherlock Holmes gelesen habe, folgt hier direkt das nächste - übrigens mit einem wunderschönen Cover wie ich finde!

In den "dunklen Anfängen von Sherlock Holmes" geht es um niemand geringeren als Sir Arthur Conan Doyle selbst. Aus der Ich-Perspektive erzählt er, wie es zu seinem Zusammentreffen mit Dr. Joseph Bell kam - seine Inspiration zu den berühmten Detektivgeschichten.

Es fängt nicht direkt mit dem Fall der Heather Grace an, hier hat mich der Klappentext etwas irritiert. Aber das hat überhaupt nicht gestört, denn der Autor versteht es sehr gut, einen langsam an die Umstände heranzubringen, die die beiden ungleichen Charaktere zusammen gebracht haben.
Arthur Doyle lernt Dr. Bell zur Zeit seines Medizinstudiums kennen und hält anfangs gar nicht viel von dessen seltsamen Methoden der Aufklärung und Deduktion. Doch die beiden wachsen mehr und mehr zusammen, so dass beinahe so etwas wie Freundschaft entsteht. Dieses Verhältnis und ihre Entwicklungen zu beobachten fand ich sehr faszinierend. Vor allem auch wie Dr. Bell beschrieben wurde, wenn man den Vergleich der Figur des Sherlock Holmes vor Augen hat.

Die Augen der Heather Grace, dieser Fall kommt erst etwas später zum tragen, nachdem man schon ein bisschen in das "detektivische" Verhalten der beiden reinschnuppern konnte. Zuerst war ich nicht so überzeugt, dass etwas spannendes daraus werden kann, denn es hörte sich nicht wirklich nach einer "aufregenden Geschichte" an.
Da der Schreibstil aber sehr fesselnd ist, und im übrigen auch wunderbar an die Zeit angepasst, es viele Hinweise und Puzzlestückchen gibt und man immer versucht, selbst zu erraten, was wohl dahinter stecken mag, hat die Spannung nie wirklich nachgelassen.

Besonders fand ich hier vor allem, dass mehrere Aufgaben gelöst und ermittelt werden mussten und David Pirie am Ende nochmal mit einer großen Überraschung aufgewartet hat.

Fazit

Ich bin vom ersten Band der Trilogie sehr begeistert und freue mich jetzt schon auf den 2. Teil! Arthur Doyle als Watson und Dr. Bell als Sherlock haben mich hier völlig überzeugt und der fesselnde Erzählstil haben das ganze wunderbar abgerundet.

© Aleshanee
Weltenwanderer

Aus den dunklen Anfängen von Sherlock Holmes

1 - Die Augen der Heather Grace
2 - Die Zeichen der Furcht
3 - Die Hexe von Dunwich

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This epitome of apocryphal Sherlockiana (Doyle-iana?) has been reviewed at length by people more accomplished, and by professionals who know how to award marks as well as how to deduce them while reviewing a work. Alas, an ignoramus like me can only go ga-ga (not the Lady, of course) over something if he likes it, otherwise simply forget it and condemn the work (and often the author, as well) to the dungeon. This book belongs to the former category. I loved it, esp. the deeply disturbing images with which the novel concludes which may (I repeat: "may") explain why Arthur Conan Doyle's sharp & analytical mind determinedly ran away from reality, and being a 'bleeding knight' himself, how he might have sought the refuge of nonsensical stuff. I had devoured this novel sometime towards the begining of last month, but have started reveiwing the series after completing the entire trilogy. If there are still lovers of Sherlock Holmes (and detection-enthusiasts in general) who have not read this book, then I would like to recommend them to this book at all haste.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been looking for a series for quite some time now without any luck. While 'The Patient's Eyes' is the first in a trilogy rather than a series I'm happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and I'm eagerly looking forward to reading all three books by David Pirie.

Pirie, a longtime fan of Arthur Conan Doyle, writes the fictional memoir of Doyle's early experiences as a medical student of Joseph Bell's at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Bell is widely believed to be the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Doyle's position as Bell's clerk introduce him to Bell's confidential investigative work with the police and his controversial methods of deduction.

Pirie offers Doyle's reflection on his relationship with Dr. Bell and the differences between their relationship and that of Holmes and Dr. Watson.

"The honest truth is my relations with the Doctor never precisely mirrored the smooth cordiality between the two detectives in my fiction. Even there, I occasionally allowed a touch of asperity to show itself and this was but the tiniest hint of the true state of affairs: namely that for many years I could not easily reconcile myself to my mentor."

"When I first encountered him I was having to come to terms with my own family problem and, not much later, the urgent need to make a living. All this made our collaboration uneasy. But in my heart I know there is much more to it."

Pirie also alludes to a Doyle's relationship with a woman named Elsbeth and how it comes to a horrible end but never elaborates on what exactly happens.

I enjoy reading fiction set in Victorian times and expected some gritty Victorian details. However, there are less period details than I expected but I was not disappointed by this because the story is told in a very realistic way. Attention is paid to the details that are important and relevant and the ones you would expect to be remembered by someone recounting the past.

This story had all the right ingredients to satisfy my tastes. It was realistic, logical and suspenseful. The mystery was creepy and had some surprising twists, while the characters were realistic, human and emotional. The emotional relationships between Doyle and Bell as well as the mystery surrounding Elsbeth really pulled me in. I loved the whole premise of the book and the perspective that Pirie gives Doyle, I thought it was all very well done and satisfying. The only criticism I have is that the interjection of the story about The Beale cipher slowed the pace and momentum of the story when it was at its climax.

I've already started reading the second in the trilogy 'The Night Calls' while the third 'The Dark Water' is waiting on top of the pile next to the bed.
I wish David Pirie would write more fiction like this!

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5 Sterne

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this mystery, but my favorite part is that Arthur Conan Doyle is the major character. I enjoyed how the author used his knowledge of Doyle's life & times to make a rich story and an enjoyable story.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Patient's Eyes" is the first novel in a series about Arthur Conan Doyle. I inadvertently read the third novel ("The Dark Water") first and although I liked it well enough (4.0), I wanted to begin the series in proper order. The author previously wrote the screenplays for two BBC made for TV movies, "Murder Rooms" and "Murder Rooms: The Patient's Eyes" later shown on PBS in the US. The majority of his career has been as a critic and writer of mystery and horror (screenplays and films). In this book, he begins a series that while fictional attempts to show how medical student Doyle's family life and knowledge of (here, association with) Professor Dr. Joseph Bell became involved in "adventures" that are the basis of his most famous creation.

In this book, the author sets up the "framing story" that causes Doyle, the first-person narrator, to set pen to paper. The bulk of this volume concerns a case (mystery) that occurred during Doyle's early days as a doctor, but it has additional "framing" material that describes his home life and some of his time as a student. Although it might have been confusing, the story is laid out quite well and the transitions are easy to follow. By setting the story in these three different time periods, Mr. Pirie is able to have the essential points of the story cleanly presented. Doyle himself establishes the similarities between his "real life adventures" and those he created later on in the framing tale. In the recollections of his medical school days Doyle tells us of his attitudes towards being a Doctor, his father's mental and physical illness, and his feelings about Dr. Bell and his methods. Lastly, there is the primary narrative that concerns "the patient" and crimes in a small English seaside town.

Taken on it's own merits, this book is interesting and well-written. If the names Doyle and Bell were substituted for "Smith" and "Jones" and the literary career was stripped out of the framing tale, this would still be an engaging book. I thought that the twist of having Doyle bear the brunt of a fellow graduate's "plot" was an excellent addition to what might have been an "okay" mystery. By developing the richer story line (and I do not know how much of little of it may be historically accurate), Mr. Pirie keeps the reader interested and the pacing fast. As a further side-story, he introduces ciphers (codes) both as part of this plot and as an item that is of interest to Dr. Bell. Personally, I enjoyed this foray into cryptography very much.

In this book we get our first meeting between student Doyle and Professor Bell. Doyle is a brash and skeptic young man. While smart and occasionally observant, he stumbles through the logic and practice of Bell's "method" in much the same way (and with similar success) as Watson does with Holmes. The parallels are impossible to ignore as throughout their scenes together Doyle is the misguided and emotional equal of Watson in almost every way. Given that this book (and series) is cast as "The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes", this isn't too surprising, nor is it unwelcome, but there were a few places where I thought that Doyle should have been sharper (i.e. observant) or more logical. I am one that likes to see Watson portrayed as less of a bumbler (despite my fondness for Nigel Bruce) and since Doyle was smart enough to create Holmes, one would think that he might have a few more flashes of brilliance.

On the whole, I thought that this was a well-constructed, researched and written novel. I liked how the author established the story and designed the book to be the first in a series. This book did not leave me feeling unsatisfied (for more) at its end, nor did it feel "strained" to set up the series. I don't think you need to be a fan of the real life Doyle or Sherlock Holmes to appreciate and enjoy this book; it can stand on it's own quite well. Give it a try.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little ways into this book when I realized it was, in part, the basis for an excellent film I viewed last year ("Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle).

David Pirie's debut novel introduces Scots medical student Arthur Conan Doyle to his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell ... and several years later involves them both in a difficult case when Doyle receives a copy of one of his Sherlock Holmes stories with an address annotated in the middle of an illustration. The case closely parallels "The Speckled Band" in its particulars, which I can safely say and still not deliver spoilers. Through this event, another case involving Heather Grace, with whom Doyle becomes infatuated, comes their way.

The two men examine evidence through Bell's unusual methodology, the which becomes the basis for Sherlock Holmes' forensic sciences.

Once I started this book, I did not want to put it down. The clues are well laid out, the historical research about the time period and events impeccable. Highly recommended for Holmesians like myself, or those who enjoy a well-researched historical mystery.

[Roshni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sherlock Holmes is rumored to be based on Doctor Bell, and this story takes us to Arthur Conan Doyle's apprenticeship (Watson) to Doctor Bell (Holmes) in a variety of adventures. Loosely based on the classic Holmes books, this spin-off has good writing and an entertaining story. Nothing to compare to the original, but an interesting idea.

[Brigitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sehr gut gelesen.
Sherlock Holmes und Doktor Watson spielen nicht mit. Jedoch Sir Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, als wenn die Abenteuer von Sherlock selbst erlebt hat.
Nette Geschichte, gut zu hören und nie zu langatmig.

[Jette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Verlauf der Geschichte war besser als gedacht. Dass es dafür aber am Anfang 100 Seiten voll Langeweile brauchte, ist sehr schade. Die Geschichte um Arthur Conan Doyle und Joseph Bell hat mich sehr interessiert. Mal schauen, ob ich den zweiten Teil noch probieren werde.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Holmes Pastiche

David Pirie’s The Patient’s Eyes is one of those books that feels like it has been dislodged from a shadowy corridor of the late nineteenth century — a work that smells faintly of carbolic acid and candle smoke, where madness, medicine, and mystery intertwine like a fever dream. It’s a literary sleight of hand that reimagines a young Arthur Conan Doyle not as the calm, composed creator of the world’s most rational detective, but as an earnest, insecure doctor stumbling into the sort of mystery that might have inspired Sherlock Holmes in the first place. In this first volume of Pirie’s “Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes” trilogy, Doyle himself becomes the protagonist, and his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell — the real historical figure who inspired Holmes — emerges as a living, breathing detective before the legend had even formed.

At one level, The Patient’s Eyes is a murder mystery, complete with the eerie pacing, sudden violence, and unresolved questions that mark the best Gothic thrillers. But at a deeper level, it is a novel about origins — the origin of the detective story itself, the birth of forensic reasoning out of the medical gaze, and the uneasy moral terrain where observation shades into obsession. Pirie doesn’t merely borrow the tools of Conan Doyle’s imagination; he forensically dissects them.

The story begins with Doyle, freshly graduated from Edinburgh, establishing a modest practice in Southsea. His days are monotonous, filled with common ailments, loneliness, and the creeping suspicion that he has chosen a profession that barely conceals death. His one spark of intellectual light comes in the form of his mentor, Dr. Bell, whose extraordinary powers of deduction — based entirely on keen observation and logical inference — both awe and unsettle him. It’s this mentor-student dynamic that drives the psychological energy of the book. Bell’s almost supernatural intuition blurs the line between reason and magic, and Doyle, ever the empiricist, struggles to reconcile admiration with unease.

Enter Heather Grace, the “patient” of the title, a woman afflicted with what seems like a nervous disorder — insomnia, hallucinations, and the feeling that she’s being watched. Doyle’s medical instincts tell him it’s hysteria, a common Victorian diagnosis, but something in her story doesn’t fit. Her fears revolve around a recurring vision: a cyclist who follows her, always at a distance, always silent, whose presence seems to foretell disaster. From that moment, Pirie turns the screw of tension with a craftsman’s care, weaving psychological unease into social critique.

This “ghostly cyclist” — the titular patient’s eyes following unseen movements — operates as both literal and symbolic device. On the surface, it’s the perfect Gothic trope: the spectral pursuer, the enigma on the road. But Pirie, being a subtle writer, turns it into a metaphor for Victorian surveillance, the panopticon of propriety and patriarchy. Women in that era were watched, diagnosed, contained — whether by doctors, clergymen, or moralists. The figure that haunts Heather Grace is as much the shadow of society as of her own mind. Doyle, the young doctor, finds himself both the observer and the observed, both healer and intruder.

It’s here that Pirie’s achievement becomes clear. Rather than writing a mere Sherlock Holmes imitation, he writes about the conditions that made Sherlock Holmes possible. He delves into the Victorian obsession with categorizing human behavior, diagnosing moral and mental disorders, and converting intuition into evidence. The novel thus operates on two levels — as a finely crafted mystery and as a cultural meditation on the birth of rational inquiry itself.

The setting amplifies this doubleness. Pirie’s Southsea is not the cozy seaside of postcards; it’s a place of decaying respectability, of streets that echo with suppressed hysteria and domestic secrets. The fog outside mirrors the murk inside Doyle’s own conscience. The writing evokes the sensory precision of Wilkie Collins and the psychological density of Stevenson — a combination that makes every page feel atmospheric and intellectually charged. There’s something dreamlike in Pirie’s pacing: the scenes unfold slowly, but each detail seems to carry the weight of premonition.

Dr. Joseph Bell’s entrance deepens the novel’s philosophical undertones. He is both Doyle’s teacher and his tormentor, a man of such acute perception that his reasoning feels indistinguishable from clairvoyance. In one chilling scene, he deduces the background of a patient from the faintest traces of soil on his shoes — a moment lifted almost verbatim from the historical Bell’s real-life demonstrations. Yet Pirie infuses this logical brilliance with ambiguity. Bell’s deductions, for all their precision, seem to drain empathy from his humanity. The cost of such clarity, the novel suggests, may be emotional detachment, perhaps even moral blindness.

This interplay of admiration and dread — Doyle’s awe for Bell’s mind, and his horror at Bell’s coldness — becomes the psychological fulcrum of the book. It’s a relationship that anticipates the duality of Holmes and Watson, intellect and empathy, analysis and emotion. Yet because Pirie makes Doyle himself the “Watson,” the story gains a meta-textual layer: we’re watching Doyle experience, for the first time, the intellectual thrill and moral unease that he would later transmute into fiction. The novel becomes a portrait of the artist as a young doctor — one who learns that observation can illuminate truth but also destroy innocence.

The plot thickens when the seemingly medical mystery morphs into something darker — a pattern of deaths, disappearances, and conspiracies that ripple through the genteel facades of Victorian life. Pirie pulls from real events and period scandals, blending them seamlessly into the narrative. There’s an unmistakable echo of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and even of The Moonstone, but Pirie’s distinctive contribution lies in how he anatomizes the moral psychology of his characters. Every deduction carries an emotional residue; every solution leaves behind a trace of unease.

Doyle’s evolution from doctor to proto-detective is portrayed with remarkable subtlety. He begins as a man of medicine, using the diagnostic gaze to study symptoms; by the novel’s end, he’s using that same gaze to study human deceit. Medicine becomes the training ground for detection — an insight both historically accurate and thematically rich. After all, the original Sherlock Holmes stories would later borrow heavily from medical logic: the clinical, detached observation of symptoms; the elimination of impossibilities; the steady transformation of observation into revelation. Pirie’s genius is in dramatizing that process as lived experience rather than retrospective legend.

Comparatively, where most Holmes pastiches attempt to recreate the voice of Watson or mimic the format of the classic short story, Pirie’s approach is more interior, psychological, and philosophical. His Holmesian world is embryonic — not yet codified, still uncertain. Doyle himself is flawed, self-doubting, sometimes naïve. The effect is hauntingly humanizing. It’s as if Pirie has found the emotional origin of reason: fear. Before deduction became a science, it was a defense mechanism — a way to control chaos through logic.

Another strength of The Patient’s Eyes lies in its engagement with gender. Heather Grace, the central patient, is not merely a plot device but a tragic mirror to the patriarchal institutions around her. Her “illness” reflects the systemic gaslighting of women in the nineteenth century — their desires medicalized, their fears dismissed as hysteria. Pirie gives her a psychological depth reminiscent of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, yet places her firmly within the realist-Gothic tradition. The haunting presence that follows her is not just external but internal — the embodiment of repression and trauma.

When the truth finally surfaces, Pirie delivers his revelations with clinical calm — no melodrama, just the quiet horror of understanding too late. The mystery resolves, but not in a way that restores order. Instead, we are left with a residue of melancholy, a recognition that knowledge can wound as deeply as ignorance. This emotional aftertaste is what separates The Patient’s Eyes from generic detective fare. Pirie’s conclusion is not a celebration of logic’s triumph but a meditation on its cost. Doyle learns that clarity comes with loss — that to see too much is to risk losing one’s innocence.

Stylistically, Pirie’s prose is precise yet evocative, combining the rhythm of Victorian narration with the psychological insight of modern crime fiction. The dialogue feels authentic without being archaic, and the descriptions are rich without excess. The pacing, deliberate and taut, reflects the medical metaphor at the novel’s core: diagnosis requires patience, observation, and dissection. The reader, like the doctor, must attend to symptoms — the flicker of emotion, the misplaced phrase, the minor detail that unravels a life.

In the broader context of Holmesian pastiche, The Patient’s Eyes stands apart because it explores not imitation but inception. It’s about the making of the mind that would one day make Holmes. Other pastiches — from Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Per-Cent Solution to Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series — often focus on Holmes as myth; Pirie focuses on the myth-maker. He situates Doyle’s imagination within a moral and emotional apprenticeship. In doing so, he restores the human dimension to a legend often ossified by fandom and formula.

Comparatively, one can see The Patient’s Eyes as occupying a middle ground between Michael Cox’s The Meaning of Night and Caleb Carr’s The Alienist. Like Cox, Pirie revels in atmosphere and language; like Carr, he excavates the intersection of psychology and crime. But unlike either, Pirie grounds his narrative in real historical figures, giving the reader the uncanny pleasure of watching fiction being born out of fact.

By the time the novel closes, Doyle is no longer the same man. His medical rationality has collided with the Gothic irrational; his curiosity has cost him comfort. The mentorship of Bell, once a beacon, now seems tinged with dread. The patient’s eyes — those haunting symbols of observation and suffering — have forced him to see not only others’ pain but his own. It is as though Pirie is saying that every detective, every writer, must first experience the terror of seeing too clearly before learning to turn it into story.

In essence, The Patient’s Eyes is both a mystery novel and a philosophical inquiry into the nature of perception. What does it mean to see? What does it mean to know? And what happens to the soul that insists on knowing too much? These questions pulse beneath every page, making the book as much an exploration of human consciousness as of crime.

In the grand scheme of Holmes-inspired fiction, Pirie’s work feels like the dark, introspective counterpoint — the moment before myth becomes method. If Conan Doyle’s stories are the sunlit parlors of Baker Street, The Patient’s Eyes is the fog-bound alley where those stories gestated — full of fear, guilt, and fascination. It’s the dream before the awakening, the shadow before the silhouette.

By the final page, one senses that Pirie has achieved something quietly profound. He has not written a pastiche but a premonition — a novel that inhabits the psychological twilight from which modern detection was born. It’s haunting, melancholic, and eerily plausible. One finishes it not with the satisfaction of having solved a puzzle, but with the lingering awareness that observation itself is an act of intrusion, and that knowledge, once gained, cannot be unlearned.

The Patient’s Eyes thus stands as both homage and critique — a love letter to the rational brilliance of Holmes and an elegy for the innocence lost in its making. It’s a work of layered intelligence and lingering sorrow, reminding us that the human need to understand, to explain, to deduce — no matter how noble — often arises from a deeper, darker fear of what lies unseen.

And that, perhaps, is Pirie’s quietest and most unsettling revelation: before there was the world’s greatest detective, there was simply a young doctor, a haunted patient, and a pair of eyes that refused to look away.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

It might have been a better idea for me to read more Sherlock Holmes stories before reading this fictional take on Arthur Conan Doyle and his supposed inspiration, Dr. Joseph Bell. I've read a handful, here and there, over the years, so I recognized Holmes' famed methodology in Bell, but I do wonder if I missed any references due to not being more well-read. I should have read my two complete volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories first, but those are packed away in storage, and this book was sitting on the shelf in the library beckoning to me.

Regardless of all that, it was an intriguing mystery. A little disjointed as far as the flow of the story, but pretty solid overall. There are two more books that follow this one up, and I plan on starting on them right away.

[Bre · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not about Holmes. Wait, oh, it sort of is...??? OK then. It's not as Holmsey as you think, it's more uh Doylinian and Belian...(I made that up on the fly) but it's got Holmes sprinkled in with it. Props to the author for taking a different route then the lousy, burned crispy pastiche, but then again, some parts of it were like Sherlock Holmes looped on replay, given the new name of Bell, cut straight out of the original canon. There's a scene with a cyclist pretty much the same as the solitary cyclist in the Holmes books. In fact, there were many scenes pretty much copy pasted. It took away from me being completely shocked and left me with strange sense of deja vu.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh. Nice. Goodreads hat schon wieder meinen ursprünglichen Review gelöscht und meine Lese-Daten völlig sinnbefreit überschrieben. Alles nur, weil ich es wage, das Buch über die App als fertig zu deklarieren.

Also muss ich mir wohl einen neuen aus den Fingern saugen.

Re-Read 2022.
Ja, der Anfang ist immer noch recht holprig und man denkt schon es wird niemals richtig in Schwung kommen. Aber irgendwann läuft es, das Paar hat sich gefunden und es darf gerätselt werden.
Schön finde ich auch, dass es mehrere Rätsel gibt. Fein säuberlich in Kapitel verpackt. Man kann durch das Buch jagen oder auch bröckchenweise lesen. Man wird in beiden Fällen gut unterhalten.

[Lana Kamennof-sine · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Pirie has done a most commendable job. He writes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's days as a med student at Edinburgh University and as a newly minted physician. Moreover he writes about Dr Bell the man claimed to be the model for Holmes.
It's a skillfully written book that catches you up & takes you on a journey of discovery. It challenges the gray matter too with codes and considerations.
Looking forward to reading others by Pirie.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enveloped in the Sherlock mode, for certain, as the story unfolds slowly and eventfully with puzzles and ciphers and surprises. Characters are truly interesting, so I look forward to reading the next in this series. I have it at another location, so will have to wait until the weekend to dive back into Pirie's excellent, moody writing. I shan't bother describing the premise as this is not a book new on the scene. I am just late in finding it.

[Vanessa Pätzold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the book. The cover already made me curious and the interior is even better. Both thumbs up for this masterpiece about Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle and Doctor Joseph Bell. You´ll find many references to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. I´m really looking forward to reading the next part!

[Jen Marett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Sherlock Holmes is my guy so my standards are pretty high. Interesting take on Arthur Conan Doyle and his relationship with Doctor Bell (the supposed mentor for Sherlock.) Twist at the end caught me off guard too.

[M.k. Yost · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson... and yet it is. Arthur Conan Doyle and his mentor, Dr Joseph Bell are on the case. Combining historical fact with great storytelling, and a twist you won't see coming, Pirie definitely keeps the reader going because they want to know more.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent page turner, perhaps simply written but interesting to see Conan Doyle's start as MD and the medical professor who he supposedly based Sherlock character on. Kept me turning pages to the end with a nice twist..

[Sarah83 sbookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

As known from Doyle's biography Pirie picks the idea that Doyle himself and his prof manage adventures as Sherlock Holmes experiences later in his books.

A good start to read other books, which are not written by Doyle but which use the same atmosphere and the same genius.

[Patrizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

überraschendes Ende aber sonst hat mich das Buch nicht wirklich begeistert

[Deb · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had David Pirie's series featuring a fictionalized Arthur Conan-Doyle and his real-life medical professor Dr. Joseph Bell on my reading list for a few years. This is the first book in the series. I had high hopes, being a long-time Sherlock Holmes fan, but I have to say this tale was less than I expected.
To begin with, there is so much hinting at past events that remain unexplained as of the final page, and way too much foreshadowing (had I but known...). Then there is the general drabness of young Conan-Doyle's life, which makes for a very dreary reading experience. Dr. Bell's character is interesting, and I recognize some of the traits that Doyle translated into his own invention, Sherlock Holmes. It's a great idea, but perhaps Mr. Pirie spent more effort on replicating Doyle's style than was necessary. (Several of the characters certainly seem to have been drawn by Doyle's melodramatic imagination.) And there are several digressions into cryptography that have little to do with the case at hand.
The story (supposedly the basis for the Holmes story, "The Solitary Cyclist") was an okay mystery, with a dark twist at the end, but we're left uninformed as to the circumstances of a major character's death--the entire tale is prompted by Doyle's musing over this death. So irritating for readers!
I simply didn't enjoy this book enough to want to read the rest of the series. Not even the "cliffhanger" epilogue will tempt me to read on to find out about the Edinburgh case that haunts the Doyle character and his mentor.
Sorry, but I'm old enough to want to love the books I read, and not spend my shortening reading time on books that don't delight me in some way.

[Matteo Leorati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doyle, studente di medicina ad Edimburgo, è intenzionato ad abbandonare gli studi a causa di difficoltà familiari, tuttavia la conoscenza del professor Bell gli fece cambiare idea. Ultimati gli studi, Doyle si trasferì a sud, vicino alla costa per avviare la professione medica. Qui conobbe la sua prima paziente, Heather Grace, venuta in visita da lui per un problema agli occhi e perché convita del fatto che una strana figura la segua e le voglia fare del male. Doyle, affascinato dal caso, decise di aiutare la signora Grace, ma si trovò invischiato in una vicenda ben più seria e cupa di quel che sospettava: durante le indagini si verificarono diversi omicidi. Alla fine il professor Bell raggiunse il suo ex allievo per fare chiarezza sugli avvenimenti. Il geniale dottor Bell, non senza difficoltà, riuscì a scoprire la verità: Grace ebbe una relazione con Coatley mai approvata dai genitori di lei; Grace, consapevole che non sarebbe riuscita a vivere il suo amore, uccise i suoi genitori e Coatley si assunse la responsabilità di quel gesto per il quale fu condannato a morte. Successivamente Grace visse una relazione con Horler, che terminò a causa di un rifiuto di lei. Horler arruolato in marina fu inviato a combattere in Africa, dove subì importanti mutilazioni e perse il senno; al suo ritorno dall’Africa raggiunge Grace e la perseguitò inseguendola, ma quest’ultima realizzò presto l’identità del suo inseguitore e lo sfruttò per i suoi piani: uccidere Greenweel, il suo attuale pretendente in modo tale da mantenere intatta la sua eredità e la sua indipendenza.

[yesterday · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein Buch á la Sherlock Holmes, aber ohne Sherlock Holmes? Im Grunde fasst ein Satz schon sehr viel davon zusammen, worum es in diesem Buch geht. Der Autor mischt bekannte Tatsachen über Arthur Conan Doyle und seinen Professor, Joseph Bell, mit fiktiven Geschichten, in denen die beiden Mordfälle und verstrickte Familienangelegenheiten aufklären.
Erzählt wird aus der Sicht des jungen Doyle, der als Student Bells Assistent ist und ihm auf die Schliche kommt: Der Doktor arbeitet gelegentlich mit der örtlichen Polizei zusammen, wenn etwas unstimmig ist und diese nicht mehr weiterkommt. Indem Pirie Doyle erzählen lässt, rückt er ihn selbst in die Rolle des von ihm ersonnenen John Watson, Bell ist somit die Vorlage für Holmes. Dies stimmt sogar, der Doktor deduziert fast so gut wie sein literarischer Nachahmer.
In wie weit die beiden realen Personen tatsächlich an Fällen gearbeitet haben, ist nicht bekannt, aber Pirie widmet sich dieser Möglichkeit hier mit Sorgfalt und dem passenden Schreibstil, einer „Doyleschen“ Ausdrucksweise.

Alles wird deduziert, seziert und Lösungen werden sowohl für Doyle als auch den Leser ausführlich erklärt, doch eines bleibt offen: der Beginn des Buches, als Doyle eine seltsame Botschaft erhält und diese ihm zu Heather Grace führt, allerdings Jahre nachdem Bell und er einen Fall um Grace gelöst haben. Ein klarerweise unbefriedigendes Ende, das wohl erst im nächsten Buch, Die Zeichen der Furcht, geklärt wird. Als dritten Band der Reihe gibt es auch noch Die Hexe von Dunwich.

[Nancy I · Rating 4 out of 5]

In David Pirie's debut novel we are given his account of how Arthur Conan Doyle meets Dr. Joseph Bell, who is considered to be Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. Doyle becomes Bell's clerk at the University of Edinburgh, and it is from there fiction takes over.
Saddled with debts Doyle agrees to work with James Cullingworth, a former university mate who has a lucrative medical practice in a south-coast town in England. He takes over one of Cullingworth's patients, Heather Grace (James is not pleased), and finds her malady intriguing. Yes, Doyle, who has not had regular contact with Bell, thinks making Bell aware of the patient's situation could help him properly diagnose/sort out Miss Grace. Eventually Bell makes his way to Doyle and together they try to resolve the issue. Two murders occur; Bell and Doyle want to solve these before Miss Grace becomes victim number three.
Having read Pirie's The Night Calls, the second book in this Doyle & Bell trilogy, the last one is sitting here waiting for me to get to it.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some problematical aspects to this mystery -- which I won't go into because it would involve spoilers -- but on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it. The voice really felt authentic and took me back to those days when I eagerly lapped up the Sherlock Holmes stories and novellas. The plot kept me involved, and I liked the characters. I look forward to reading the other two books of the series!

[Cecilia Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story begins in 1898 and flashes back to 1878.
Narrated by Arthur Conan Doyle, Pirie fictionalizes a closer relationship between
Doyle and Doctor Joseph Bell, his professor.
The story will be familiar to fans of the PBS Mystery program:
Murder Rooms.

[Mark Luongo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as intriguing as the first one I read nor the page turner the last one was either. Seemed to be more a portrayal of Doyle's tortured soul and "deciphering" (no pun intended) his relationship with Bell.I will give the last one a try.