This book, this book. Where do I begin?
I don't know if it was because I got distracted reading the story or what, but I thought the whole plot was outlandish. And HOW many villains/ruffians did they have to deal with?? Let's tally:
-Baron
-Baroness
-Brandon
-Swede with Brandon plus a few extra cohorts
-Stickler
-Bishop
-Col. James Moriarty
I can understand one or two, but Good Lord! People were getting murdered left and right and yet no one really cottoned on to the fact. This I didn't believe, especially whenever people quickly became abreast to the fact that Watson's room had been rummaged through, or that there was a fight in the smoking room. If news travels that quickly with such MINOR things, wouldn't it travel all the more quickly when there has been MURDER? EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE DIED AT SOME POINT IN THE NOVEL.
And the whole plot with Swede and Brandon seemed 100% unnecessary. Anarchist plot to destroy the ship?? Had nothing to do with the plans, really, it just wanted to demoralise capitalist sentiments and the countries involved in capitalism/the Titanic. Psh. If Swede and Brandon had just waited a night they would have had their desired sinking without the loss of them and their entire crew. Or maybe they would have died. Who the hell knows? It's the Titanic, where survival is a crapshoot at best.
And, again, I might have just read really quickly and missed it, but what about the Baron/Baroness and the Baroness's blackmail notes? And what were they even doing? Were they just German spies? It was all so quickly thrown together at the end it left me grumbling.
The Moriarty bit, too! Would he really be that interested in submarine plans? I suppose so! Him luring Holmes away so they could grapple? Pure foolishness. If I was on a sinking ship and someone was like "if you don't meet me I'll do something to cause the deaths of many" I'd just be like "Hey, buddy, take a look around you." I understand that author really, REALLY, *REALLY* wanted to parallel the Holmes/Moriarty fight at Reichenbach, but *seriously*. I think he could have done it in a better fashion and lent a bit more credibility/drama to it.
I found the whole mystery to be a bit blah. I guess I don't go in much for spy things, and I suppose all the different threads just annoyed me. I was hoping the end would have a bit more drama, too. It's the TITANIC, for Christ's sake. If you don't have a bit more tragedy with people sloshing about in the water, facing people perishing in the ocean, or finding corpses when your characters thought they might be of some help, then what the devil are you doing with it?!
It just sort of went lickety-split fast, with Watson being conked over the head and dumped into a lifeboat. I understand that he would probably have stayed behind, being chivalrous to the end and it being incredibly difficult for men (even in first class where it was far more likely) to find their way into a lifeboat. And then it was going down. We didn't get much description of it starting to tilt or any of the real madness of the final minutes, which I was really looking for in this story. It would have given it quite a punch.
Even with the Holmes element, it was a little lacking. He fights and overcomes Moriarty, as he has to, and then he dives out into the water and swims for the lifeboat. There could have been so much more delved into in this. He could have dealt with people trying to stay afloat and thus using him as a preserver. Or he could have seen the corpses. Or he could have described what it was like as people started dropping off the overturned collapsible. He did, in fact, describe the water a bit, but it was only to quote Lightoller and then it was just more in passing.
I would give this a sort of below-par mystery element, which is sad because I think the man was really aiming at it being stellar, him being a Sherlock Holmes fan and all. I would actually rate the Titanic portion more highly. The detail and description was there, and I was being a bit eagle-eyed, I admit. Turns out I have two passions: Titanic and Sherlock Holmes, and I have been a fan of the Titanic FAR LONGER (since I was a child) than I have been of Sherlock Holmes. I've even met Robert D. Ballard, who discovered the ship's wreckage in 1985, and obtained his autograph on a few books when I was in elementary school. I admit that the man did his research well on that front, and I was suitably pleased.
I was also pleased to find a number of characters, both minor and more major, that were actual people who had sailed on the Titanic. I always love to see that sort of thing.
If the Titanic information had been on level with the mystery portion of this book, I would have had to give it a two at best. It was the detail that lifted my rating up to three stars.
Added note: I don't know if it was just my edition (which is one of the newer ones released in the "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" series) or something else, but I noted a few mistakes with spelling and the like. For example: I think a character meant to say "dressed" but instead the word said "Doctoressed". I wouldn't say that it was enough to detract completely from the story but just something I noticed.