I've been trying to figure out exactly when I first read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of the master detective of all master detectives, the inimitable Sherlock Holmes. I think I was in my early teens, though I might have been younger. And I think I picked up various of the collections from the library, where Doyle's works were easily available. And not just the Holmes stories; I recall fair amounts of Brigadier Gerard and Prof Challenger.
In those long ago days I would struggle to figure out the solutions to the various mysteries and I distinctly remember the excitement each adventure engendered and a vague sense of dread related to quite a few, as if they were tales of the supernatural. Now the excitement has gone, and the dread, and the desire to out-do the great man, or figure out how he was going to figure it out. Now it's all delightfully familiar and more than a bit kitsch.
But I'm more aware now of the quite brilliant variety of the stories. They don't follow a formula. The sheer variety on offer in the first actual collection, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, points to where Doyle's real genius lay as a great story-teller. I'm about to re-visit the Speckled Band, and I can't wait, even though I know what's in store. Possibly because I know what's in store.
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