Review: Perhaps this author's best Mycroft story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 6, 2012
Writing a Mycroft Holmes story while being true to Conan Doyle's description is not easy. Mycroft Holmes' important government job and his small and regular orbit from lodgings to office to the peculiar Diogenes Club provide no natural way for him to meet a range of new people or give him the time and mobility to investigate anything personally. Nero Wolfe had some similar handicaps but author Rex Stout provided his character with the job of private detective and the intelligent and capable investigator Archie Goodwin to do the leg work and act as the narrative voice. In David Dickinson's series of Mycroft Holmes stories, Mycroft's assistant does not function well as an Archie Goodwin surrogate nor does he serve consistently as the narrator. In this particular story, however, the author's choice of the Diogenes Club as the setting for a murder eliminates most of the difficulties mentioned above. In other Mycroft stories by Mr. Dickinson, clever deductions by Mycroft have been few and far between and instead of uttering his own memorable sayings, he typically quotes his brother Sherlock's sayings. This latter trend continues in this story but at least there is a good set of deductions which lead to the murderer's discovery. After that, however, there is little information given about the murderer or the "backstory" of the murder. Instead, the last few pages give hints that this may be the last of Mr. Dickinson's Mycroft Holmes. If this is indeed to be the last such story, at least it is probably the best of the lot.