The West End Horror

While shorter than Meyer's First Holmes Pastiche (The Seven Per Cent Solution), the West End Horrors is a much better book. Meyer still uses real figures (Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, and Bram Stoker etc), which is silly and seems like a poor attempt at making Holmes less fiction and more reality. And while this volume doesn't have any action sequences like "Seven Per Cent", it is an excellent mystery that puzzles the reader until it builds to an intriguing and believable climax. One thing that the buyer should take note of is that this is not "The White Chapel Horrors" (Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper) as many reviews have confused the two. The West End Horrors is a really well-written Holmes Pastiche. I am looking forward to reading Meyer's Latest Holmes offering, the Canary Trainer.

I've read The West End Horror 3 times and absolutely love it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes and I think Nicholas Meyer writes even better than Conan Doyle! I used part of the solution as an example in a project I did recently on the... well if I give you the topic, I'll also give you the solution to the mystery so I won't spoil it.

This novel is somewhat anti-climactic. (Not just because it's a Holmes novel, which generally means 80% of the story is investigative dead ends, followed by 2% Holmes having a brainstorm and throwing Watson into a cab, leading to 10% villain's confession, ending with 8% denouement.) Having read Meyer's first Holmes homage, "The Seven Percent Solution," I was hoping for another effort of similar quality. "The West End Horror" does not quite live up to such lofty expectations. Clearly, it is well-written, capturing (and possibly improving on) the flavor of the original Doyle stories, and it is only by comparison to Meyer's brilliant first book that this one seems to struggle. Unfortunately, Meyer just tried too hard with this one to be clever. The "famous people" cameo in "Seven Percent Solution" made perfect sense. Sigmund Freud is a character because he was the most logical person for Watson to seek out, given that situation; he needed a medical consultation in the field in which Dr. Freud first made his reputation before the whole psychoanalysis fad took off. In "The West End Horror," however, the same trick is overdone, making the entire plot seem excessively like a gimmick. Oscar Wilde drops in and interacts with George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker reluctantly introduces Holmes to Henry Irving, and Gilbert and Sullivan are on hand to be interviewed about a murder victim. It's a little bit like the beginning of "Titanic," where Rose brings some paintings by Picasso aboard the doomed ship, wondering aloud if one day they'll ever be worth anything. In the hands of a lesser writer this would be a recipe for disaster; Meyer being an excellent writer, it's still a four-star novel. Still, the plot would have worked just as well, and possibly better, had the theater critic been named Bob, the famous actor Fred, the comic opera tandem Frank and Joe, and the gloomy novelist Aloysius, instead of throwing the famous personages into the mix and allowing the readers to become distracted by such unhelpful musings as "Is Meyer suggesting that Bram Stoker and Henry Irving are lovers?" (A: Probably not, but when Oscar Wilde tells Holmes that Irving is possessive of Stoker's time, one does wonder.) Freud's appearance added to the first book. The appearance of the entire membership of "Who's Who in London Theater, 1895 Edition" detracts from this one.As a postscript, although the story does begin with a stabbing death in London, and although the synopsis on the book cover does point out that the killer is nicknamed "Jack," readers should be aware that this is NOT a Jack the Ripper novel.

Brilliantly done. I've been reading Doyle's Holmes stories for nearly thirty years; I read Meyer's _The West End Horror_ when it was new and I still have my original copy. I've also read some of the other attempts to bring Holmes to life again in full-length novels, and in my own view Meyer is the only one who nails it.He had come out of the gate hard with _The Seven Per Cent Solution_ (of which I also still have my original copy). With a tough act to follow, he meets the same standards in the present volume.Without giving away details, I can tell you only that the case involves a pair of grisly murders on London's West End. Holmes is brought into the matter by a friend whose name I will not divulge -- a certain then-unknown Irish playwright who resembles a giant leprechaun, detests Shakespeare, and far from recompensing Holmes for his services, has an annoying habit of allowing the detective to buy him dinner.The resulting adventure takes Holmes and Watson all over the theater district, where they meet with a number of well-known personages whose presence explains why this case has never seen the light of day before: it would simply have been impossible for Watson to follow his usual practice of disguising this cast of characters for publication. ("I shall change the names," Watson tentatively suggests in seeking Holmes's permission to commit the tale to print. "That is precisely what you cannot do," Holmes rejoins. The details of this exchange may be found in the volume's introduction.)Meyer handles the entire project with wit and panache, remaining loyal to the Holmesian oeuvre and even improving on Doyle's own treatment of his memorable characters. All in all, a very impressive work that will delight fans of the original Holmes stories. It can be read quite independently of _The Seven Per Cent Solution_, by the way, though that one is highly recommended too. (I was less impressed with _The Canary Trainer_.)[P.S. Most of you probably already know this, but just in case somebody doesn't: Yes, this is the very same Nicholas Meyer who directed the best of the _Star Trek_ movies. You'll find a bit of Holmes homage in _Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country_, which Meyer helped to script. Spock even quotes Holmes's dictum that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" -- attributing it to one of his "ancestors."]

This story has all the elements I have enjoyed in the original adventures. I really liked Meyer's "editorial" comments.