A Study In Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

 

This semester just gone, I had the first chapter of the book I'm working on work-shopped in class at uni. One of the questions I asked for feedback on was "what type of society do you feel this story is set in from this introduction?" One classmate came back with "Hasidism meets Armish meets 'Victorian' Vienna meets Conan Doyle's London meets weird-science mechanisation". Now that was pretty close! the Hasidism/Armish side of it isn't so much what I was going for, but I could see how that was read into the first chapter. But what struck me was "Conan Doyle's London". It occurred to me that I had never read any Sherlock Holmes and how much doing so might help put me in the right mindset to understand what I was trying to achieve with my own writing.

I quickly procured a lovely old fashioned bind up of the four novels from a second hand shop and started by reading the first story.

It was fantastic! Even if you're not writing a novel set in a Victorian inspired fantasy world, they make fascinating reading. 

I must admit, I found Sherlock himself to be a bit more conceited than I expected him to be. And this didn't seem designed to be mysteries that the reader is expected to solve before the answer is revealed, as much of the small details that Sherlock uses to figure it all out aren't reviled to us until he is explaining how he came to his conclusion. 

But, all that said it's a great ride to go along with Watson on!

I can't wait to read the rest! Good thing I've got some time off coming up.

 

4 Gold Stars

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Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahms

(New cover April 2012)

Down The Rabbit Hole is the first of of the Echo Falls Mysteries by Peter Abrahams which were first published  in 2005. Abrahams writes adult crime thrillers, some of which have been adapted into movies. So he seems to know what he's doing when it comes to piecing a mystery together. So when he put his mind to a 13 year old girl who's into sport, obsessed with acting, a Sherlock fan and has an abundance of pluck, it's a great combination that really has you gripped! (Stephen King is quoted on all of the covers as being a huge fan, just in case that's the type of information that sways you).

One day, Ingrid attempts to walk to soccer practice from the dentist, thinking that her parents will be too late to pick her up, but she gets lost. This leads to a chance encounter that dramatically changes the course of her life. When a murder is discovered, Ingrid knows the police have the wrong suspects, but how to solve the mystery without getting her self into trouble or needing to answer some sticky questions?

I REALLY enjoyed the way this book unfolded. Each character is vivid and distinct; you can see them before you while you read. And Ingrid's apparent kinship with Sherlock, with her use of logical reasoning and attention to detail brings her to life and makes her the perfect person to solve the murder case.

These books (I'm guessing the next two will be the same and can't wait to read them) are really well written crime thrillers, staring a young teenager, which makes them perfect for readers 9 or 10 and up. By which I mean, teenagers and adults will enjoy these just as much as the target age group (even though I kind of feel that I'm target market for these too).

4.5 Gold Stars

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Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

It's been some time since I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, but I knew as soon as I heard that Brian Selznick had released a new book that I wanted to read it. Luckily for me, I was given a copy for Christmas and I'm very appreciative because as soon as I finished reading the book I was reading before this, I sat down and read it.

Wonderstruck, and Hugo Cabret for that matter, are a completely different reading experience from anything else. I've seen people describe it as a graphic novel, but I think it's different from that. By all means, it's a novel and it's heavily graphic in design (of the 640-odd pages, over 460 of them are illustrated), but it's in now way like a comic book, or relies on cells that need to be read/viewed in the correct order. Similar to a sequence in Wonderstruck, I think it's much more like a silent picture, where we are shown sequential images, the size of a movie screen, and then it cuts to text to fill in some of the blanks. The only difference with this one, is that the text is telling a different story completely (or is it?) until they overlap towards the end.

Brian, himself, explains it fairly well in this nifty little video, even if he gives a bit more away of the story than I would have done.

Brian Selznick's books are a delight to behold. The level of detail in his illustrations is astounding and the way they progress and play with the written text is delightful. I can fully recommend them to anyone. They're beautifully produced as well.

4.5 Gold Stars

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Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

There’s something striking about Tim Wynne-Jones’ writing that I find intriguing. He writes subject matter that I would normally have no interest in whatsoever, but somehow his prose is so elegant and atmospheric that I’m engaged from beginning to end.

Admittedly, I’ve only read one other of his books: The Uninvited, which I really quite liked, so it was no surprise when I thoroughly enjoyed Blink & Caution.

It tells the story of two teens who have run away from home (separately, they don’t know each other at the beginning of the story) and have been living on the streets for a number of months.

‘Blink’, as he has named himself, goes into a hotel to scavenge food left out in the hallways, leftover room service, and witnesses something that will lead him into more trouble than he would have imagined.

‘Caution’, as she has named herself, sees her life on the streets as an extended death sentence for the horrible thing that she did.

There seems to be no hope for either of them until they meet each other and decide to work together to get to the bottom of the mystery that’s in the newspapers across the country, the mystery that Blink has witnessed a key part of.

I wish I had been marking the quotes I like throughout this book (like I usually do) because some of his similes and metaphors were surprising and beautiful. If there’s one thing I get sick of in books, it’s clichéd descriptions.

So if you’re after an absorbing crime thriller, that doesn't get too heavy but is full-on enough to keep it interesting, I can recommend Blink & Caution.

And I know I’ll be hanging out for Tim Wynne-Jones’ next book and (when I have time!) looking into his others as well.

Trash - Andy Mulligan

Someone whose opinion I respect told me that this book could be the most important Children's/Young Adult to be released in a number of years. I wondered what he could mean by that and whether I would agree with him. So, I looked to get myself a copy and it jumped the queue that is forever piling up.

It is told from the point of several people who were 'involved' in the events that unfold but primarily from three boys who live on (both physically and economically) the garbage dumps of a large city in an un-named Third World country. These boys, like so many other poor people, make their money by sifting through the garbage that is forever being piled up in the tip and selling bits and pieces of scrap that they find.

One day, one boy finds something that will change the lives of he and his friends in a bigger way than he could have imagined.

The book then unfolds like a classic crime mystery, but from the point of view of the innocent third parties that take it upon themselves to get to the bottom of it, Discovering massive governmental corruption in the process.

I found the whole thing fascinating and could not help but view it in light of John Pilger's film The War on Democracy which I only saw a few weeks ago.

You can watch pretty much the whole thing here if you want: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3739500579629840148#

In this way, I would have to agree, this is the perfect book to open up discussion about the way so many people in Third World countries are forced to live and how greedy individuals withhold the bettering of entire nations.

Brilliantly crafting the perspective that jumps from character as they each give an account of their part in the story, Mulligan establishes the feeling that it is not just one radical revolutionary that is sorry for their lot, but the collective feeling of most that poor are not simply passively inviting their poverty: it is actively thrust upon them as those with power abuse it.

It is hard not to be repulsed by accounts of the filth the poor have to endure simply to stay alive, or not to be moved by the heartbreaking realisation that children must attempt to survive (although quite often do not) in these situations. Sometimes it to too easy to forget what is happening elsewhere in the world when we are constantly surrounded by our own comfort, our own troubles and our own books. Therefore it is fantastic when a novel, particularly one aimed at younger readers, is so successful in reminding us of this.

And it is when we are young that we need to be made aware of these situations. Igniting interest and passion in young people is like setting in motion the snowball effect.

But without getting to deep into political discussion, I will get back to the book. And similarly, if the reader were disinclined to take the discussion further, Trash can be read as an exciting adventure of boys thwarting police. But when it comes down to it, it poses the question: What is trash? or Can people be so easily disregarded as trash?

Triskellion by Will Peterson

Triskellion was really different to what I was expectiong, although I'm not sure what I had in mind. The cover speaks of buried bodies and secrets so I was thinking along the lines of a murder scandal or something. But what unfolded was far more interesting.

When Rachel and Adam are sent from their home in New York to spend the summer with their grandmother in the postcard village of Triskellion, things quickly turn darker and more threatening than either could have possibly guessed. This village has been hiding secrets for centuries and Rachel and Adam are compelled to discover them.

I did not want to stop reading this (although I was listing to it in my car on audio book, so I would want to stay in my car after I parked and finished the chapter then was quick to jump in again the next day). So I'd have to agree with those quotes which say it's a 'page turner'.

It may have been my dormant fascination with Celtic Paganism and how this aspect seeps slowly into the story like honey, but I loved it! Right from the start in was well written and engaging, eerie and exciting.

I have to hand it to Teresa Gallagher. When the audio book started and I heard her doing all the voices of the characters (as in: she put on a different voice for each character speaking) I cringed a bit. But it was much better than I thought it would be. when more characters got introduced, almost all of them had a distinct voice that suited them and before long it was almost as if it was a fully cast and dramatised reading of the book. I really enjoyed her rhythmic voice and her phrasing was well suited to the book.

This is the first Audio book I have listened to all the way through and it was a good one.

I look forward to reading the 2nd and 3rd books in this series!