Los Angeles Times
Orginal and affecting...Naslund has constructed an intricate plot...usually poignant.
State
Loaded with surprise and twists of plot appropriate to Sherlock Holmes. Irresistible.
Publishers Weekly
- Publisher's Weekly
After Holmes's death, Dr. John Watson decides to write the great man's biography, but his ad in the Times requesting letters and interviews elicits only Mycroft Holmes's ire and an anonymous note warning him to abandon the project. In looking at Holmes's Stradivarius, Watson is reminded of Victor Sigerson, the odd and flamboyantly attired fellow--an accomplished musician, juggler and magician--who had given the valuable violin to the famous sleuth. The good doctor recalls being baffled by the way Holmes had taken to Sigerson, pursuing his violin practice with an uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Watson had never learned the surprising nature of what Sigerson and Holmes shared besides their love of music. Up to this point, about halfway through the novel, Naslund ( Ice Skating at the North Pole ) keeps her readers enthralled. But the narrative loses its grip as Sigerson becomes embroiled in the silly affairs of mad King Leopold, from which Holmes must extricate him. Returning to the present, Watson uncovers some secrets about Holmes's family known previously only to a few. Initially lively and fun, Naslund's imaginative work is based on an intriguing premise that is ill-served by its resolution. (Oct.)
Library Journal
The ever-popular Sherlock Holmes is the subject of at least three novels this fall. Nicholas Meyer's The Canary Trainer: From the Memoirs of John W. Watson (Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/93) is a promising but ultimately unsuccessful blend of the legends of Holmes and of the Phantom of the Opera. Though gripping, Mark Frost's The List of Seven ( LJ 7/1/93) relies too much on the supernatural for true Holmes lovers. Despite its title--Holmes in love?--Naslund's work comes closest to achieving the style of Doyle's original work. As it opens, Holmes is dead, and a dispirited Watson has decided to write his biography. He immediately begins receiving ominous threats. Pages torn from Holmes's record books lead Watson to reconstruct the detective's mysterious bond with the talented violinist Victor Sigerson. Readers won't be surprised when Sigerson turns out to be a woman in disguise, but there are twists and turns to come. In the end, Violet Sigerson's story gets a bit preposterous--not all of Naslund's inventions are as convincing as Doyle's--but Holmes fans should find this book enjoyable and atmospheric.-- Barbara Hoffert, ``Library Journal''
Booknews
One more Holmes recreation--this with a modern feminist sensibility. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
A triumphant reimagining of the Sherlock Holmes canon that identifies, once and for all, the great love of the detective's life. Detailed summary would wreck the inventive plot by unmasking its mysteries, which begin to unfold when Dr. Watson's 1922 announcement that he is writing a biography of his late friend brings a storm of threats and warnings against the project—two of them from Mycroft Holmes and a writer identifying herself as Mrs. John H. Watson. The disappearance and reappearance of a mysterious old mental patient called Nannerl leads Watson to a secret Holmes had kept even from him (a secret that someone is now determined to keep from coming to light): Holmes's fascination, dating back to his earliest years with Watson, with Victor Sigerson, the gifted violinist who gave the detective lessons back in 1886 and left him his prized Stradivarius in his will. By comparing his own notes on the Sigerson affair with Holmes's account in his diary, Watson uncovers the woman, code-named "English Violet," with whom Holmes was secretly in love—the woman for whom he traveled that summer to the kingdom of Ludwig II in a futile diplomatic errand that placed both Holmes and Violet in danger. Where does all this leave Irene Adler, the woman of Holmes legend? Don't worry: Naslund (the story collection Ice Skating at the North Pole, 1989) calls on her to point the feminist moral of Holmes's romance in a magical epilogue. Despite some incredible flights of fancy in Ludwig's fairy-tale Bavaria: one of the very few Holmes pastiches that not only honors the great man's memory (compare Nicholas Meyer's slapdash The Canary Trainer, p. 821) but unleashes his residual mythicpower for more ambitious purposes.
