The Sign of Four (Rollercoasters)

by Arthur Conan Doyle

Ed Glinert (Editor) and Peter Ackroyd (Introduction)

As a dense yellow fog swirls through the streets of London, a deep melancholy has descended on Sherlock Holmes, who sits in a cocaine-induced haze at 221B Baker Street. His mood is only lifted by a visit from a beautiful but distressed young woman - Mary Morstan, whose father vanished ten years before. Four years later she began to receive an exquisite gift every year: a large, lustrous pearl. Now she has had an intriguing invitation to meet her unknown benefactor and urges Holmes and Watson to accompany her. And in the ensuing investigation - which involves a wronged woman, a stolen hoard of Indian treasure, a wooden-legged ruffian, a helpful dog and a love affair - even the jaded Holmes is moved to exclaim, 'Isn't it gorgeous!'

• ISBN10: 0140439072
• ISBN13: 9780140439076
• Publish Date: 5 July 2001
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 16 November 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 160
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780140439076

Reviews

[sa090]

I was supposed to be starting my Herbology read for OWLs 2019, but since I couldn’t decide between two books I decided to read this one for some extra credit to fulfill the History of Magic required reading.

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Much much better than the first novel for sure, it really shows how one writer can grow from one book to another. While the first book was the first introduction to Sherlock Holmes directly from the source for me, it suffers from a jarring shift in narrative that ends up being totally useless in the end in my opinion. Or rather that if it was just told to me, it would have been more than enough for me to get it than to see it completely explained. This book fixes that with the way the background are told, much more suitable for a mystery as expected.

That aside, I’m glad that the mystery this time around wasn’t just a small variation of the one handled in book one. Murder mysteries are common and numerous, but when you put a twist there and add extra details to make a richer background like Mr. Doyle did, it leaves a much more interesting mystery to follow. The themes of said mystery are not that bizarre for sure, but then again, you don’t need to be in a mystery series I think. Just make it engaging, fun and grasp my attention and then I’m hooked.

This book showed the reveal of a recurring character in the books and while I do think that the “relationship” part of it was a bit too comical and too abrupt for my taste, I have to remind myself that this was written over a century before I was born so I wouldn’t know too much about the relationships then at all. I could of course read more about it, but I dislike a focus on romance in my readings with a burning passion so I will stick to learning through this collection of books lol.

Seeing a different side to Sherlock Holmes was also interesting, any exposure to media surely shows his drug addiction but seeing it being so blatant in the book was way too interesting for me. Sherlock is not an easy individual to be around, and adding a cocaine addiction to the mix is a definite increase to the list of things that makes him somewhat difficult. The most frequent thing I think of when reading these books, is how freakin amusing it would be to see someone like Sherlock living with someone like John in real life.

The writing can be a bit difficult to get attached to, but overall this was a much better step up compared to the first book and I look forward to see what else there is in store for me.

Final rating: 3/5

[inlibrisveritas]

A good read though it has some pacing issues, just as the first one did. I really enjoyed the search for clues, meeting Toby, and learning more about both Watson and Sherlock...but the moment the explanation of the crime begins the story itself begins to slow in an odd way. It's almost as if the explanation comes to late in the story to keep the momentum going.

I will be continuing the series however as I really do like Watson and Sherlock, and I can sort of see that Doyle was trying to find his stride with these stories.