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Figgy O'Connell

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The Adventure of the Colonial Boy

The Adventure of the Colonial Boy - Narrelle M. Harris You’ve probably noticed the explosion of Holmesian retellings in the last few years, what with the two RDJ and Jude Law movies; BBC’s Sherlock, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman; and the American series Elementary, featuring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu. Aside from these screen-based adaptations, there are also countless retellings in written form.

With so many options out there, it can be hard to know just where you’re joining the story and what is going on. The best can be picked up by readers with only a little knowledge without losing them along the way, filling the important information in as it goes along.

The Adventure of the Colonial Boy takes place two years after The Final Problem, as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, used in the development of both Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and the final episode of Sherlock season 2.


Watson has done his grieving for Holmes and has suffered through further tragedy in the interim.
The last miscarriage, three months ago, had been the most devastating of all. All his medical knowledge and skill had proven useless, just as all his courage and strength had been useless when Holmes had met his end. Their daughter was birthed dead, the cord around her little neck. Mary had bled and bled and bled from the arduous labour and fruitless delivery, and nothing could be done. Mother and daughter died hours apart. Their new beginning had become instead an echo of a bloody battlefield death.
Then a telegram from Melbourne, Australia intrudes on his grief, featuring the words Holmes so often used to summon him. Words Watson never included in the stories he published about their adventures. Words only he and Holmes could know.
Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same. – S.H.
Both suspicious and desperate to believe that Holmes may not, after all, be dead, Watson goes as immediately as the sea voyage will allow. Soon Holmes and Watson are together again, on an adventure through Bohemian Melbourne and rural Victoria, following a series of murders linked by a repulsive red leech and one of Moriarty’s lieutenants.

What follows is a story of a crime, along with grief, forgiveness, and so much awkwardness between two people who were closer than friends, but who never put into words how they felt. Too many words lie unsaid between the Great Detective and his biographer. Too much that they feel is a secret.

The rest of this review can be found HERE!