Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan

Indian author Murthy offers an offbeat pastiche that purports to tell the real story of what happened after the legendary Holmes-Moriarty encounter at the Reichenbach Falls. In 1893, two years after Watson believed both men died, he receives a letter postmarked Yokohama, Japan. Inside is a note in Sherlock Holmes’s hand: “Watson, I need you. My violin, please. S.H.” Also enclosed is a first-class ticket for a merchant ship bound from Liverpool to Yokohama. Aboard the boat, Watson finds an oddball assortment of passengers, including his Japanese suitemate, Kazushi Hasimoto, who’s murdered during the voyage. Moriarty turns out to have survived Reichenbach, but those expecting a genuine battle of wits between the professor and the detective will be disappointed. The humor isn’t for all tastes (in a footnote Watson remarks that he didn’t read one of Holmes’s monographs, as he “felt it was one monograph too many”), and the plot drags for long stretches. [em](Mar.) [/em]