HOLMES AND WATSON: THE NEXT GENERATION
Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, October 6, 2017 Under: Pop Culture
Last night I finished reading Brittany Cavallaro’s A Study In Charlotte, the first book in a trilogy about Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson - the great-great-great-granddaughter and great-great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The story is set in the modern day at a prep school in Connecticut, where both protagonists have been sent by their respective families for different reasons and who meet quite by accident (or so we are first led to believe).
Jamie is a rugby player with aspirations of being a writer and something of a temper. Charlotte seems something of a goth type who runs a regular high stakes poker game on campus and shares Sherlock’s issues with addiction. They are thrown together after young Watson is accused of murdering one of their classmates; the victim is someone with whom Holmes has an unfortunate history, and with whom Watson had a rather violent (and public) run-in prior to his murder. As the case progresses, young Holmes and Watson learn that this case has connections to their famous ancestors; along the way they manage to develop an odd sort of friendship (and, by the end, maybe something a little more).
It’s actually a fun book, although some of the language and subject matter to me seemed awfully adult for a “young adult” book. (I guess that’s just my age showing, though; when I think of “young adult” mysteries I think of The Hardy Boys and the Alfred Hitchcock “Three Investigators” stories I was reading in grades 4-6 and have re-read a number of times since then. No talk of drug use or rape or use of the “F” word in any of those…) It took a little while to warm up to Charlotte - she’s not very likable at first, although as the story progresses you understand the reasons for her behavior - but ultimately both she and young Jamie prove themselves to be worthy heirs to the mantles of their famous forebears. Cavallaro obviously has a great deal of affection for the original Conan Doyle stories and works in a number of references to them, as well as to Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.
I don’t know how most Sherlockians will greet this new set of stories; it's certainly not your traditional Holmesian saga, though fans of the TV series Elementary and Sherlock should certainly enjoy them. For my money, however, the series is off to a pretty decent start and I’m looking forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy. (The second book, The Last Of August, has just been released in hardback but I’m going to wait for the paperback edition so my copies will match.)
(Review copyright 2017 by John Allen Small)
Jamie is a rugby player with aspirations of being a writer and something of a temper. Charlotte seems something of a goth type who runs a regular high stakes poker game on campus and shares Sherlock’s issues with addiction. They are thrown together after young Watson is accused of murdering one of their classmates; the victim is someone with whom Holmes has an unfortunate history, and with whom Watson had a rather violent (and public) run-in prior to his murder. As the case progresses, young Holmes and Watson learn that this case has connections to their famous ancestors; along the way they manage to develop an odd sort of friendship (and, by the end, maybe something a little more).
It’s actually a fun book, although some of the language and subject matter to me seemed awfully adult for a “young adult” book. (I guess that’s just my age showing, though; when I think of “young adult” mysteries I think of The Hardy Boys and the Alfred Hitchcock “Three Investigators” stories I was reading in grades 4-6 and have re-read a number of times since then. No talk of drug use or rape or use of the “F” word in any of those…) It took a little while to warm up to Charlotte - she’s not very likable at first, although as the story progresses you understand the reasons for her behavior - but ultimately both she and young Jamie prove themselves to be worthy heirs to the mantles of their famous forebears. Cavallaro obviously has a great deal of affection for the original Conan Doyle stories and works in a number of references to them, as well as to Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.
I don’t know how most Sherlockians will greet this new set of stories; it's certainly not your traditional Holmesian saga, though fans of the TV series Elementary and Sherlock should certainly enjoy them. For my money, however, the series is off to a pretty decent start and I’m looking forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy. (The second book, The Last Of August, has just been released in hardback but I’m going to wait for the paperback edition so my copies will match.)
(Review copyright 2017 by John Allen Small)
In : Pop Culture
Tags: review holmes
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
