Conan Doyle détective - Les véritables enquêtes du père de Sherlock Holmes

by Peter Costello, Emmanuel Scavée (Traducteur)

S'il n'avait pas son pareil pour imaginer de mystérieuses intrigues dans la fiction, sir Arthur Conan Doyle, le créateur du plus célèbre détective de la littérature policière, n'hésitait pas non plus à mener l'enquête en personne dans la réalité. Passionné de criminologie, membre du très sélect Crimes Club, sollicité par un abondant courrier de lecteurs qui s'adressaient à lui, en dernier recours, comme ils auraient fait appel à Sherlock Holmes lui même, Conan Doyle fut souvent amené à s'exprimer, tant en public qu'en privé, à propos des grands dossiers criminels de son époque y compris celui de Jack l'Eventreur. Plus d'une fois, l'esprit chevaleresque de Conan Doyle l'amena aussi à défendre des causes qui paraissaient perdues. Quand George Edalji, un jeune métis, fut injustement condamné pour de sordides mutilations de bétail dans une région reculée de l'Angleterre rurale, ou quand Oscar Slater, petit proxénète d'origine juive, fut jugé coupable de meurtre au terme d'un procès indigne, Conan Doyle n'hésita pas à risquer sa réputation et à peser de tout son poids pour faire pencher la balance de la justice en faveur des innocents persécutés.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Biography, Mystery

365 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conan Doyle not only created the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, beloved sleuths of generations of mystery fans, but also enjoyed lending his aid to real criminal investigations. The author begins by presenting information on Doyle's life. Apparently the real man possessed some attributes of both detective team members, but his own success as a sleuth was not as great as that of his creations. The author devotes uneven attention to each crime which interested Doyle. I don't know if that is because Doyle spent different amounts of effort on the cases or because Costello's interested varied. The wide disparity in chapter lengths made it less readable. Perhaps the author should combine similar shorter cases into a single chapter? A bibliography for each chapter appears in the back of the book, but the author's not tying specific pieces to precise sources make it less valuable for academics although it still remains useful.

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an ok read for background on the major criminal cases in Conan Doyle's day including the Jack the Ripper case which Joe Bell - Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes - was said to have worked on. The book promises however that they are all cases that Conan Doyle worked on which is inaccurate. The Oscar Slater and George Edalji cases were the major ones Conan Doyle personally worked on and there are a few small cases he is said to have taken, however much of it seems based on heresay and the sources cited seem sketchy. In addition, the author takes off on conversational flights of fancy and has a great deal of obvious typos that are distracting. An ok read if you are interested in the major cases in the news at the time which Conan Doyle may have saved clippings from or studied, but did not necessarily take an active part in.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my review on my book blog: http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/1...

[Erica Helland · Rating 2 out of 5]

When the author referred to a woman's cleptomania as a type of premenstrual tension, he lost me.

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining, gossipy review of the true crimes and scandals that influenced Doyle's writing throughout his life, some of which he later adapted for Holmes stories, and some of which he had a hand in trying to solve. Unfortunately, real life is much sadder and more racist than Holmes stories, and despite their whimsical case names in this book, a lot of these mysteries ended without justice being done.
An easily digestible book, but perhaps not the most reliable - Peter Costello at one point describes the dawn of the spiritualism movement as "A new era, either of religious advance or of vain credulity, depending on your point of view". It was the latter, Peter. My goodness. He regards Doyle's fall into spiritualism with indulgent fondness - "Many of his admirers were to feel this was a sad fate for a novelist. But the novelist himself was never happier." His Ripperology is also a bit, well, generous in its definitions of evidence. I'd go with the analysis of a harder skeptic if I wanted to actually talk about any of the cases in this book, but Peter definitely knows how to write dramatic scenes out of dry old scraps and the briefest of encounters, and I have to admit it made for an enjoyable read.

[Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Curioso libro en donde el autor nos habla de una faceta desconocida del creador de Sherlock Holmes, la de detective, al igual que su archiconocido personaje. Conoceremos casos de lo más peculiares y truculentos en los que la ayuda de Conan Doyle fue clave para ayudar a esclarecerlos. Casos tan famosos como los de Jack el destripador o la misteriosa desaparición de Agatha Christie y casos no tan conocidos pero igual de interesantes e intrigantes. Evidentemente, unos me han gustado más que otros. Como aficionada al "true crime" he disfrutado mucho este libro, y como aficionada a temas paranormales me ha hecho especial ilusión saber que Conan Doyle era un gran aficionado y defensor del espiritismo, es más, en algunos de los casos que se cuentan en este libro la intervención de médiums fue determinante para resolverlos o, al menos, para dar con pistas fiables y decisivas para descubrir el cadáver o algún aspecto fundamental para llevar a cabo la resolución. Me ha gustado mucho y, si no le he dado más nota, es porque algunos de los casos me han parecido algo aburridos, poco interesante para el lector.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was part true crime stories, part biography if Conan Doyle. I learned about some famous British crimes that I knew of but not about (Crippen, brides of the bath) and more about Doyle's fascination with spiritualism. I probably would have enjoyed the book more if I hadn't taken such a dislike to the author (Costello, not Doyle). His tone annoyed me and the casual assertion in the early pages of the book that one woman was a kleptomaniac/hoarder because of hysteria due to PMS (in a book written in 1991) and was a common problem did NOT endear him to me. (Again, this was not Doyle's belief, but the author of the book about Doyle; offensive either way, but more excusable in an older man with Victorian roots.)

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, an interesting read. I have read more than my fair share of Conan Doyle biographical materials and it made a nice change to focus on one specific topic. Even when some chapters felt a little tenuous, they still made for interesting stories. It's fascinating to me how so many people would get in contact with ACD with their problems to try and get him to help solve them. And even more fascinating was the amount of times he did just that!

One grievance I have with the book itself is that there are an inexcusable amount of grammatical/typographical errors throughout that can make reading some sentences almost impossible. For a reprinting, this is pretty unfortunate.

Otherwise, a nice insight into Conan Doyle's foray into crime solving throughout his lifetime.

[Eve Markley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book and an interesting read for those who are strong fans of Sherlock Holmes and/or Conan Doyle.
I found some overall story somewhat broken and episodic. That’s probably inevitable with true stories of this sort. But I feel that the anecdotes would have benefited from more clarity. I found it hard not to get lost about who or what was being referred to by author at times.
All of the problems aside, this is a worthwhile read, especially if for fans of Conan Doyle.

[Moniquilla Guajara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3'75
Un libro interesante, con casos muy interesante, sobretodo algunos en particular
En algunos momentos se hace repetitivo y pesado.
De fácil lectura

[LimesRickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

That the content would be interesting is a given but I never expected the writing to be as good as it is. It was a joy to read.

[Luis Reséndiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

un problema de este libro son los cabos sueltos que deja. por ejemplo: en algún momento, el autor enuncia "adrian conan doyle [hijo de arthur conan] dice que los casos de sherlock holmes fueron usados como manual de policía en el reino unido. existen documentos que lo comprueban. [ok.] sin embargo, adrian c.d. también dijo que fueron usados en china. hasta la fecha, hay un documento en el archivo conan doyle en chino, pero nadie ha sabido decir qué contiene". ese tipo de elisión es inútil y, yo me supongo, imperdonable en un libro "académico" que sepa respetar sus fuentes: ¿por qué no acudió a un traductor, por ejemplo? misterio. otra cosa que encuentro muy rara es el acomodo de las citas: supongo que para no entorpecer la lectura las aclaraciones se incluyeron al pie de página y las fuentes al final del libro, en apartados separados por capítulo. no obstante, esto es un poco raro: ¿no habría sido mejor dejar las fuentes en el cuerpo del texto? así como están prácticamente hay que adivinar cuál es la fuente de la parte que uno desea consultar. es un acomodo extraño, aunque nada inusual. este libro, además, le profesa un cariño exacerbado a conan doyle, un cariño que le hace daño a su investigación. por ejemplo, hay muy poca crítica a la postura espiritista de c.d., un tema que pudo haberse abordado con mayor puntillosidad. quién sabe. tiene muchos datos sabrosos --mi .pdf quedó lleno de marcadores--, y obviamente como fan de lo sherlockiano se agradece, pero su rigor como investigación seria es bastante dudoso.

[Read1000books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sherlockians and readers of any of the biographies of Sir ACD will doubtless find this a fascinating volume. Due to his wide-spread reputation as a mystery writer, Conan Doyle was called upon many times in his life, by both police officials and those related in some way to the victim, to look into actual crimes, the case many times being either a murder or disappearance. Besides being surprised that some particularly violent misdeeds took place in the Victorian/Edwardian era, readers will be shocked at other tidbits too, such as the leader of a French outlaw gang who had once been Conan Doyle's chauffeur (see chapter 20)! Highly entertaining.

[False · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was only on my list because I'm looking for a possibly fictitious book about bee keeping by Sherlock Holmes (Doyle.) Inidividual crimes that occurred during Doyle's era (some he actively investigated based on his fame and allowance to the criminal justice system,) but overall badly written and not that interesting. I've picked up this information from other sources and God knows Sherlock and Doyle have been magnified to death.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

sadly, though there was a lot of interesting information in this book, the editing was atrocious. Should i be finding spelling errors? And the wacky grammar (i'm really not convinced that english is the authors first language to be honest), makes it hard to follow. -and this is not microbiology, it should not be hard to follow.

[C.O. Bonham · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who ever wondered how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought of all of those great Sherlock Holmes adventures. This book explains the real life cases that the creator of "the world's greatest detective" actually worked on. Very readable and eye opening look into the life of one the world's most acomplished men; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Doctor, Writer, Detective.

[Faith Wallis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was OK. Very chatty, breathlessly so. Not necessarily a recommended book unless you really want a run down of some of the cases Arthur Conan Doyle took an interest in in real life, not just his fiction.

[José Moral Fernández · Rating 3 out of 5]

El creador de Sherlock Holmes también se dedicaba a hacer de detective. Este libro narra algunos de los casos que resolvió o ayudó a resolver en la vida real. De su actividad real se ayudó para inspirarse en los casos de su personaje.

[Madeleine McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book about where Arthur Conan Doyle's stories came from and his little known 'profession' as a real-life detective for wrongfully convicted persons. If you're interested in Sherlock Holmes at all, you will want to read this book.

[Spam philebar · Rating 3 out of 5]

if you haven't read any of the sherlock holmes stories, then take my word, don't read this. it will make no sense and it will be boring. if you are a fan, by all means, dive in.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is incredibly detailed and well researched. Perfect for anyone who has to know where the idea behind the story came from.

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the date I gave up on it. A disappointment: it isn't very well organized and not well written. I think I caught a couple of errors, but I'm afraid I wasn't interested enough to check.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book and it's references between canon and actual crimes. Well researched and the photos were a bonus. Tends to be a bit long winded in spots.

[Susan]

This book gives good general background information on its subject.