Who Done Houdini? (1)

by Raymond John

Detroit Free Press reporter Timothy Wiggins learns of Harry Houdini’s death on Halloween 1926 with more than casual interest. He had been at the great magician’s final performance the night before. Wiggins had grown up as a sort of magician himself on the streets of London, stealing to survive. But then he met the real-life Sherlock Holmes, who made him his chief Bay Street Irregular. Now, years later, Holmes notifies Wiggins he is in the U.S. at the request of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is being investigated as a possible murder suspect in Houdini’s death.  What follows is a mad dash to New York and Boston with a deranged Spiritualist medium on the tail of Holmes and his team of investigators: Wiggins, his feminist wife, and Rose Mackenburg, Houdini’s top investigator into phony Spiritualism, which was rampant at the time. In Boston, Sir Arthur introduces the team to Margie, the most highly regarded Spiritualist of the day. Her séance and the bizarre form of treasure hunt that follows leads to a stunning climax that will change everyone’s perception of Holmes’s character.

Genres: Mystery

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2015

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.I wanted to like this book. I have liked adaptations where Sherlock comes to America. It deals with themes leading up to WW2. It has some likable characters. It talks about the popular sprit world at that time of history, but I just found it boring to read. I had put it aside for a while and came back and while I finished it, it was a struggle. No more for me.

[Abby Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I personally love Sherlock Holmes pastiches, but this one did not hit the mark. While it was an easy and somewhat entertaining read, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're really running out of Sherlock Holmes stories.

Firstly, the writing style is unnecessarily wordy, with a lot of old slang just for the sake of having it in there. At one point Holmes calls someone a "silly goose" which feels very out of character. Along with this, there were some racist phrases used. I can think of at least one just off the top of my head and there may be a couple of others. I know that sentiments on race and feminism (among other things) in the 1920s were very different than they are now, but I think this point could have been handled more tactfully, especially in a book published in 2015.

Another issue I had was the way the women were written. There was a lot of giggling and crying, and their reactions to Holmes and Wiggins didn't always make sense. One scene in particular where this was evident was the final reveal when both women just burst into tears without any real reason. They contributed a lot to plot points without actually being well-rounded characters. Whenever it was convenient, they would contribute, but I still don't really know anything about them. There's also a lot of talk about the women being feminists, but again, it's not done very tactfully in my opinion. Their whole personality is kind of boiled down to being feminists and advocating for prohibition (even though they both drink in the novel).

One of the main themes of this book is anti-semitism, which wasn't in and of itself an issue. Obviously, anti-semitism is bad and Holmes and Wiggins both share that sentiment. My main issue here is that there's a lot of talk about Hitler and the novel insinuates [SPOILERS] that Holmes killed one of Hitlers most trusted fundraisers, which delayed his rise to power. [END SPOILERS] I think that a lot of the dialog about Hitler and the Nazis is very clearly written by someone who knows what happens in WWII. The characters had a very accurate estimation of what the future held, which took me out of the story. While Holmes is a genius, and one could argue that he knows a lot of this from Mycroft, the odds that he is basically 100% correct in his assessment of German politics felt a little cheap to me.

Timothy Wiggins is not a terrible narrator, and I like the tie in to the Baker Street irregulars, but he left something to be desired as compared to a Holmes pastiche narrated by Watson. I didn't care for a lot of his commentary on things, but I like that the author tried something new. Additionally, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a character didn't add that much for me. I could have enjoyed the same story with a fictional character filling that role. It was never explained how Watson fit into the picture, other than saying he was a real person. I would have liked to have that a bit more fleshed out.

Finally, [SPOILERS] Holmes murders someone at the end of the book. Now, I can abide by Holmes killing a criminal in certain pastiches, but I think this one lacked enough depth. It just kind of happened, and there wasn't really a good cause for it. He did explain at the end, but I didn't personally think it was a good enough reason. Holmes also talked a lot about torture to extract information, which I personally felt didn't fit the character. I'm not citing my sources by any means, so I could be wrong, but I generally think of Holmes as more caring than he was presented in this novel. I also thought that the final reveal, where Holmes recounts a very disturbing story of another time he killed a man, was honestly a more interesting plot than the novel I had just read. I was surprised we glossed over all of that horrible stuff in a couple of pages, because it was really bad.

All in all, this book was fairly enjoyable to read. I was interested throughout, but I had a number of issues it and I didn't think it was a good representation of Holmes' character. Honestly, I would just say to try a different Holmes story.