Sherlock Holmes The Biography by
Nick Rennison
hbk out November 05
Published by Atlantic Books
at £14.99
This thoroughly enjoyable book is the best on its subject since June Thomson's
excellent 'Holmes and Watson', which it surpasses in some respects. Rennison has
knitted together clues in the canon, historical fact and imaginative speculation to
come up with an account of the life the greatest of all detectives that is as pleasantly
credible as it is entertaining. Holmes, we learn, was a Yorkshireman and the surprises
do not end there. He worked behind the scenes in the Jack the Ripper enquiry as well
as on the case of Dr Crippen and collaborated more than once with the legendary
barristers, Sir Edward Clarke and Sir Edward Marshall Hall. Oscar Wilde consulted
him, but foolishly ignored his advice. Some light is cast on those cases which Dr
Watson tantalisingly mentions without recording in full, although I was sorry not to
learn more about the Giant Rat of Sumatra. A great deal is made of Holmes'
involvement with international intrigue, including outrages perpetrated in the name of
Irish nationalism (with which, it emerges, Professor Moriarty was closely associated).
The account of Holmes' activities during the Great Hiatus, whilst he was presumed to
have died at the Reichenbach Falls, is inevitably less clearly rooted in the canon and
perhaps as a result a little less believable. But this is a quibble. Rennison's industry is
to be applauded. All Holmes fans will, even if they have reservations about some of
his conclusions, find much here to relish.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
Sherlock Holmes The Biography by
Nick Rennison
