The late Mr Sherlock Holmes

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[from Kirkus Review July 1, 1971] Tossing his deerstalker into the ring for a second time (*Sherlock Holmes: Ten Literary Studies*, 1969) Dr. Hall is once again on the trail of Holmes and Watson -- elusive quarry, but sure to hold the rapt attention of Sherlockian scholars. Did the kindly, bumbling Watson have one wife or two? He had five says Hall and microscopic perusal of the Sacred Writings yields ample clues. . . . Was Holmes a bibliophile? Was he an ascetic or a gourmet? What became of the large dispatch box ""crammed with papers"" wherein Watson kept his records of the 'unpublished' cases? Above all, when and how did the great detective -- who retired to Sussex Downs and beekeeping in his later days -- meet his end? Dr. Hall's scandalous thesis is sure to provoke a rash of contentious rebuttals from proper Sherlockians. You might dispute the author's claim that he is strictly a ""Holmesian fundamentalist"" but he is an entertaining sleuth who attacks the texts with all the mock gravity appropriate to the recondite detective. Nothing, my dear Watson, is ever as elementary as it seems. . . .

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