The Final Problem

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Greece, 1960. Rough weather at sea leaves a group of strangers stranded on the idyllic island of Utakos, all guests of the only local hotel.

Nothing could prepare them for what happens Edith Mander, a quiet British tourist, is found dead inside the beach cabana.

At first it appears to be a clear suicide, but Ormond Basil, an out-of-work actor best-known for playing Sherlock Holmes in his glory days, suspects foul play.

Accustomed to seeing Ormond as the greatest detective of all time on the big screen, the other guests enlist him to solve the mystery. But can he find the killer before they strike again?

Genres: Audiobook, Mystery

Audible Audio

Published February 12, 2026

About the author

Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez, is a Spanish novelist and ex-journalist. He worked as a war reporter for twenty-one years (1973 - 1994). He started his journalistic career writing for the now-defunct newspaper Pueblo. Then, he jumped to news reporter for TVE, Spanish national channel. As a war journalist he traveled to several countries, covering many conflicts. He put this experience into his book 'Territorio Comanche', focusing on the years of Bosnian massacres. That was in 1994, but his debut as a fiction writer started in 1983, with 'El húsar', a historical novella inspired in the Napoleonic era.

Although his debut was not quite successful, in 1988, with 'The Fencing Master', he put his name as a serious writer of historic novels. That was confirmed in 1996, when was published the first book of his Captain Alatriste saga, which has been his trademark. After this book, he could leave definitely journalism for focusing on his career as a fiction writer. This saga, that happens in the years of the Spanish golden age, has seen, for now, seven volumes, where Pérez-Reverte shows, from his particular point of view, historical events from Spanish history in the 16th century.

Apart from these, he also penned another successful works like Dumas Club and Flanders Panel, titles that, among others, made Pérez-Reverte one of the most famous and bestseller authors of Spanish fiction of our era.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not have an audio copy, but I did read in English! Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the arc.

It’s 1960, and Ormond Basil is in the dying days of his career as an actor. He was best known for his Sherlock Holmes, and he knows the character inside and out. In a double locked-door mystery, guests are stranded on a Greek island when a woman dies (suicide? or worse?) in a locked cabana. The nervous residents ask Basil to investigate, since he’s as close to a detective as they can get.

This is glorious with literary references and comments about 30s movie stars. Basil is never quite straightforward, and an interesting narrator. Having a Sherlock actor was novel. It’s also quite short, around 200 pages, and I appreciate authors not bogging down a mystery for the sake of higher word count.

[Marianne Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing and fascinating story of 3 murders on an island and the aging actor (who acted as Sherlock Holmes and never bit of literature about him) who is pressed into service when the police are unable to get to the island. Very entertaining.