Sherlock Holmes - Il caso del codice bulgaro

by Tim Symonds, Mauro Boncompagni (Translator)

Ora davvero insolita, le cinque del mattino, per ricevere visite al 221B di Baker Street. Ancora più insolita è la figura che fa la sua apparizione in una tormenta di pioggia e vento. Con una maschera nera che nasconde la parte superiore del viso e un mantello azzurro sopra la giacca a doppiopetto, il principe regnante di Bulgaria è giunto in incognito da Sofia per richiedere i servigi di Sherlock Holmes. Il Codex Zographensis, un sacro manoscritto vecchio di secoli considerato una sorta di tali­smano nazionale, è stato trafugato, ed è vitale recuperarlo quanto prima. L'ombra della guerra incombe sul paese balcanico, circondato da Russia, Impero austroungarico e Impero ottomano, tre colossi che disgregandosi minacciano di travolgere tutto. Una catastrofe che solo l'intervento del grande investigatore potrebbe scongiurare. Ed è così che quest'ultimo, accompagnato dal fedele Watson, si ritroverà presto in viaggio sull'Orient Express verso la polveriera d'Europa. Per fare luce su un mistero da cui può dipendere il destino di milioni di persone.

Genres: Mystery

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

Tim Symonds was born in London, England, and grew up in Somerset, Dorset and the Channel Island of Guernsey, off the coast of Normandy. After spending his late teens farming in the Kenya Highlands and driving bulldozers along the Zambezi River, he moved to California and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with an honours degree in Politics. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the British Association of Victorian Studies, and formerly the Chartered Institute of Journalists.

He and his partner live in the High Weald of Sussex, where the events recounted in Sherlock Holmes and The Dead Boer at Scotney Castle took place. His second novel, Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Bulgarian Codex (MX Publishing 2012), takes Holmes and Watson into the very depths of the Balkans in 1900. Holmes and Watson were back in the region – Serbia - in Sherlock Holmes And The Mystery of Einstein’s Daughter (MX Publishing 2014), and not long afterwards in ‘Stamboul’ investigating a plot against the despotic Sultan, in Sherlock Holmes And The Sword of Osman (MX Publishing 2015).
The pair will again take their lives in their hands in Tim Symonds’ fifth novel, to be published in 2016, set in Peking as the Qing Dynasty crumbles into warring factions and murderous plots.

Reviews

[Alessandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bah. Un'accozzaglia di luoghi comuni e un vano tentativo di ripercorrere i temi di Conan Doyle. Troppi riferimenti e trama esile, esilissima, per un libro che è poco più di un racconto su Sherlock Holmes e Watson. Scarso, a mio avviso.

[Konstantin Dobrev · Rating 1 out of 5]

If the author of this book felt the need to set his Sherlock Holmes story in a stereotypical Ruritania, why couldn't he have bothered to invent a name for his imaginary country, rather than appropriating the name of real country? Needless to say, apart from the name of its ruler (who also barely resembles the real Ferdinand), the Bulgaria in the book has nothing to do with the real Bulgaria, but it's a best a crude caricature, with glaring distortions for anyone actually familiar with the country. The geography as described in the is a mixture of real locations strewn randomly on an incorrect map on the country, with no attempt to keep their actual distances or relative positions to each other (Bulgaria have to be a third or more of its actual size for the journey described in the book to be possible). Similarly, the author bizarrely creates composite characters from combinations real persons, creating invented persons in the process. And the less said about the crude stereotypes by which the Bulgarian people are portrayed, the better.

Beyond that, the mystery in this story was beyond mediocre and even without the mockery of a real country and its people, would hardly deserve more than two stars. As it is, the books easily earns the lowest possible rating.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful story of an area I know so little about...loved it!

[Nora Pesheva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

A puzzle wrapped in a conundrum twisted into a riddle!

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Bulgarian Codex by Tim Symonds

The Prince of Bulgaria visits Baker Street in the exact disguise as the King of Bohemia had worn. He states that he needs Holmes and Watson to come to Bulgaria to find a stolen document.

The Codex Zorgaphensis is an ancient document more than a thousand years old. It is a gospel which the Prince says must be present for his oldest son Boris to undergo a ceremony. He compares it to the Stone of Scone, which must be at a coronation to the throne of Great Britain.

Unless it is returned, Prince Ferdinand fears that Russia will encroach on Bulgaria, and start a war which will draw in the entire world. He pays Holmes the exact sum offered by the King of Bohemia.

A summons by Mycroft to number 10 Downing Street reveals that Mycroft and the Prime Minister both feel that Bulgaria could be the powder keg to starting a war they wish to avoid. Holmes is told to cooperate with Prince Ferdinand in any way. He is also to meet with the British Counsel in Sofia.

Upon arrival in Bulgaria, the Prince takes them to the Cave Monastery of Sofia. It is there the Codex was stored, and from the Monastery was it stolen. To everyone’s surprise, the Codex is there! The Prince proclaims that the thief brought it back after learning that Holmes was on the job.

Upon return to the Capital, a certain Captain Barrington, an Englishman who married a local lady has vanished. The lady is in argument with the Prince’s Majo-Domo, Konstantin, who also lays claim to her lands. Along about the same time, the body of a woman, stripped naked and drained of her blood lies in Mount Vitosh forest. There is evidence of a struggle. Her head has been shaved, perhaps as another attempt to shame her following the stripping of the body. An attempt has been made to make her death look like a vampire attack.

The story is filled with intertwining conspiracies, deception, outright lies, and assassination attempts. The major twist I did not see coming!

I will give this one five stars!

Quoth the Raven…

[Lesley Abdela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Bulgarian Codex because I felt I was travelling across Europe in 1900 with Sherlock Holmes the greatest celebrity detective in the world, and his companion Dr Watson.

What follows is a yarn of duplicity, murder, vampires and greed for vast estates in Bulgaria and Hungary, with the fate of millions in Sherlock Holmes's hands. The disappearance of the Codex Zographensis could lead to the outbreak of war between Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans. I enjoyed the author's insights into life at the time these three ageing empires were disintegrating like great suns on every side of the Balkans.

The plot in 'Sherlock Holmes And The Case Of The Bulgarian Codex' is fictional, but the history and principal character, Prince 'Foxy' Ferdinand is based on the real Coburg Prince Regnant, later Tsar who ruled Bulgaria from 1887 until his forcible abdication after joining the losing side in World War One.

[Cedric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A romp, an opera bouffe set in a Bulgaria painted in lurid colours, a sort of Ruritania with Oriental hues. Detection is almost secondary to description.

[Calvin Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most enjoyable. Symonds weaved a neat mystery into a quick read. Well worth a read for Holmesians.