Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years

""I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa and spending some days with the head Lama."" So says Holmes to Watson in Conan Doyle's ""The Adventure of the Empty House,"" which resurrected the detective after his apparent death at the hands of Moriarity at Reichenbach Falls. Ever since, Holmes enthusiasts have speculated as to what, exactly, the detective did in Tibet; this entertaining novel offers one scenario. In Norbu's vision, Holmes travels east to escape homicidal attacks by Moriarity's henchman. In India, he hooks up with Norbu's Watson figure (and narrator), Huree Chunder Mookherjee, a Bengali scholar and spy assigned to accompany Holmes, disguised as the Norwegian explorer Sigerson, to Tibet. The narrative features numerous neoclassic (Norbu is a Baker Street Irregular so perforce a Holmes expert) deductions by Holmes as he and Mookherjee travel to Lhasa, meet the young Dalai Lama and take on a Chinese-backed evil magician whose secret identity will surprise few. Norbu, who's a prominent supporter of today's Dalai Lama, uses the novel as a platform to castigate the current occupation of Tibet by China, but that political message is woven artfully into the story line, as are breathtaking descriptions of Indian and Tibetan life and landscape in 1891. The plot strains toward the end, resorting to bombast and magical fireworks, but, overall, this is an unusual and worthy addition to Holmesiana. (Jan. ) Forecast: The publisher promises national advertising and online promotion for this title. That's good, because this book has break-out potential via numerous markets: the mystery crowd, of course, but also general fiction readers and, not incidentally, the ever-growing mass of those interested in Buddhist-oriented literature.