The Curse of the Nibelung - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery [Paperback]

Let me begin by saying that the plot of The Curse of the Nibelung is rather engaging, especially towards the end, and a less fastidious reader might well get more pleasure out of it than I did. I'm afraid that the story was ruined for me by the huge number of errors in the text--shoddy research and shoddy proofreading. Mr. North needs a better editor.

The worst error is in the choice of title, which is misleading. One might expect with a title like this that the book would have something to do with Nazi leaders searching for Alberich's ring, but no, the only reference to Nibelungs in the novel is a short paragraph about chocolates in the shape of dwarfs.

Another glaring error which the slightest amount of research would have prevented is Holmes's meeting with Wagner at the Bayreuth Festival in 1911. Considering that Wagner died in 1883, that was quite a feat, even for Sherlock Holmes.

Countless errors of the type one sees in freshman composition papers abound. A common type is the use of a homonym in place of the correct word, a typical result of either bad spelling or dependence on a spellchecker. For instance, on page 134 we learn that Holmes intends to "walk back into the old town passed [instead of "past"] the . . . Museum." On the very next page we learn that he forgot to "line the soul [instead of "sole"] of his shoes." On page 167 we read that Watson "lead [instead of "led"] the way . . . ." The word "swastika," rather important in a novel involving Nazis, is spelled "swastica" (190). One of the oddest errors I've ever seen is the treatment of molasses, a singular noun, as if it were a plural: "this was where the molasses were produced" (208) and (worse yet): "The molasses themselves were on fire" (215). My father used to pun on molasses/mole asses, but Mr. North writes as if the latter were the correct idea.

Errors with superfluous apostrophes abound. Routinely one runs across such horrors as "their's," "her's," and "our's," yet when an apostrophe is called for, sometimes it doesn't show up, as on page 168: "a bus served the staffs transport needs."

And then there are what can only be described as plain old writing errors, mistaken expression of ideas, such as that on page 217: "But it was with a sense of sweet relief that the hot water gushed out of the tap and swirled away all the sticky stench of molasses." Leaving aside the problem of how a stench can be sticky, the sentence asserts that the hot water itself felt "a sense of sweet relief" when, in fact, it is the character who had been soaked in molasses who feels the relief.

If I were to run across these errors in a rough draft, I would smile, underline them, and tell the student to correct them in the revision. For them to show up in a published book, and in these numbers, is unconscionable. Mr. North, whatever his writing abilities (I see he has published quite a bit), has been ill-served indeed by his publisher, whose proofreader should have caught all these errors long before the book went into print.

If you find it remaindered somewhere for $3.00, you may decide it worthwhile to live with the errors and enjoy what's actually a pretty good story; as for me, I regret spending $20 for it.

THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG BY Sam North is a great addition to the growing body of Holmesian adventures penned by successors to the incomparable Arthur Conan Doyle, who first introduced Sherlock Holmes in the 1890s.

It is World War II, and we find Sam North's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as octogenarians still living in London on Baker Street through the eyes of no less than Winston Churchill who proposes a spy mission that will take them into the heart of Nazi Germany. With sensitivity, Sam North convincingly characterizes Holmes and Watson as frail old men who suffer many geriatric maladies, but who will take on one last assignment from the First Lord of the Admiralty himself, if only because it is for their country.

From start to finish, the dialogue in THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG excels. When Sherlock Holmes speaks (or Watson for that matter), we easily visualize Basil Rathbone (or Nigel Bruce). North has captured the nuance and rhythm of this duo perfectly. Unlike other writers of Sherlockian sequels, North is particularly fortunate to be writing with an obvious command of many Briticisms, which might, for example, never occur to an American author. That is, Sam North's dialogue and description has an English authenticity and crispness that's part of the delight of reading this yarn.

And an imaginative yarn it is. Holmes and Watson are joined by a young woman, Cornelia Hainsley (whose dad had been killed by Nazis earlier), in their quest undertaken under the guise of a pilgrimage to a Wagner festival in Nurnberg. Without giving away any of the plot, the adventure involves chocolate factories, cocaine-laced candy, experimental jet planes, a band of Irishmen with bicycle-powered radio transmitters for sending intelligence back to the UK, among other imaginative inventions. There's disguise and confused identities, and a lot of fun. Yes, Sam North's imagination, at times, borders on the zany, but surprisingly it still works and in a way, it's probably reflective of some true stories in WWII.

Reading THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG, I recalled a former boss of mine and his WWII experience with the American OSS (predecessor to today's CIA). My boss was somewhat an expert on espionage transmitters. At some point in the War, a problem came up with a transmitter. The OSS in the States didn't know if their agent had been captured or the transmitter wasn't working. So the OSS put my boss on an airplane, and parachute on his back, he was flown behind enemy lines. When they got to the farm where he was to land, the plane's pilot knew my boss would never parachute out--this was to be his first parachute jump, ever. So with plane door opened, the pilot banked the plane very sharply and out my boss was involuntarily dumped, with the parachute automatically opening. Yes, the mission was a success, but that story captures some of the light comedic touch of THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG.

I marked down THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG slightly because I thought it longish. That is possibly only my taste in reading Sherlock Holmes, but as I recall, Arthur Conan Doyle didn't write any adventure as long as this.

Another reviewer commented on the typos in the book. Yes, there are some, but not in every other sentence, and not noticeably as one gets caught up in this involving adventure. (A hypercritic about typos is a bit like the gallery visitor, who seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time, says, Oh my, there's a fly on that painting!) I recommend THE CURSE OF THE NIBELUNG to all Sherlock Holmes fans who want to see what Holmes and Watson would be up to, even as senior citizens, when the appeal to save Britannia is made.

Curse of the Nibelung is now in a new, revised reprint of the 1981 edition originally published under the Marcel D'Agneau psuedonym but now published under the original authors name Sam North. This book is hilarious, at the same time it is very faithful to the Conan Doyle spirit. North/D'Agneau also wrote the very funny pastiche of John le Carre's spy fiction 'Eeny Meeny Miny Mole' - an affectionate spoof of 'Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy'. Curse of the Nibelung is worth adding to any Holmes collection and it would make a wonderful crazy film. Recommended.

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