Matthew Kutzin’s Reviews > The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I > Status Update

The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor - 6/10 - This one is sort of a spiritual sequel to A Study in Scarlet, which is neat I guess. It’s really more of a 5/10 but I enjoyed the closing line enough to bump it up to a 6.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band - 5/10 - Clever but not very fun. More just long-winded and macabre.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - 7/10 - This is possibly the best one yet. A fun, winding, Christmas-themed mystery.

The Man with the Twisted Lip - 6/10 - This one’s novel in that it opens not with Sherlock but with an unrelated Watson misadventure. Otherwise, it’s just a perfectly fine Sherlock Holmes story.

The Five Orange Pips - 5/10 - Interesting… This one read quickly and I was generally invested, but… there’s no mystery? Sherlock is unsuccessful, and your first guess as a reader is exactly on the money? This one didn’t age well but arguably it was weak to begin with.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery - 6/10 - Another mid-tier Sherlock story. It’s fine.

A Case of Identity - 5/10 - I was a big fan of this one until it ended on a misogynistic note :/ highly unnecessary. Would have been an easy 7 otherwise.

The Red-headed League - 6/10 - Cute. I don’t mean to diminish this story by saying that, but that really was my takeaway. The setup is very strange, which is definitely to my liking, and the conclusion to the mystery is clever as always, but this one lacked some of the snappy entertainment value of A Scandal in Bohemia. Probably the lack of Irene Adler.

A Scandal in Bohemia - 7/10 - A snappy and charming read. Sherlock is obsessed with Irene Adler and who wouldn’t be?

The Sign of the Four - 3/10 - This was convoluted and racist. I don’t recommend it!