- Paperback: 280 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; First Printing edition (Jan 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1582343284
- ISBN-13: 978-1582343280
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 16 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
1,514,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #80 in Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Sherlock Holmes
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Review
"A total success ... If you are a fan of the detective, you must read it." -- Daily Express "'The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes' is a witty fast-paced piece of entertainment of which Arthur Conan Doyle might have been proud." -- Times Literary Supplement 'This book is brilliant... If you are a fan of the detective, you must read it' -- Daily Express
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Daily Express
"A total success ... If you are a fan of the detective, you must read it."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Most people who know a little about Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series know that at one point Doyle got sick of the detective series and killed off his star character, only to be forced into "resurrecting" him after a two year absence. Here, in one of the many, many, many, modern takes on the Holmes series, eminent Tibetan author Norbu details Holmes adventures incognito in India and Tibet during those two years. The role of Dr. Watson (both as bumbling sidekick and chronicler) is here assumed by Hurree Chandar Mookerjee, a Bengali spy lifted from yet another work of fiction, Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" (and just to be totally clear, he was based on a real Indian who spied for the British!). The adventures initially consist of a plot by the henchmen of Holmes' now-dead nemesis, Moriarity, to avenge their leader's death. Holmes ends up hiding out and getting the notion to make a pilgrimage to Lhasa to meet the Dalai Lama-something strictly forbidden for Westerners. This leads to the second main adventure, which involves helping the young 13th Dalai Lama (a man critical to real-life modern Tibetan history) evade the deadly machinations of the powerful Manchu Imperial agents in Lhasa.
Norbu should first and foremost be commended for being able to almost perfectly capture the correct period speech for each character (there is a lengthy glossary at the back for all the Hinustani phrases and period slang). I say" almost" because I found Hurree's speech to be just a little too over the top, even for the type of educated servant of the Empire he is-it's just a shade too forced at times. Norbu has also captured the period perfectly and manages to seamlessly insert his own agenda by portraying early Chinese imperialism in Tibet. The portrayal of Holmes is excellent (enthusiastic, abrasive, arrogant, drug abuser) up to a point. That point is the final quarter of the book which starts melding the Holmesian world of deduction and reason with the Tibetan world of mysticism and occult powers. Up until then, I had been having great fun, but once people started throwing around hellfire and erecting mental shields and whatnot, I lost faith and interest in the whole exercise. It's not that I'm prejudiced against such things (I've played sword and sorcery role-playing games for 15 years), I just don't think they belong in the hyper-deductive world of Sherlock Holmes. It's well known that Conan Doyle had a strong belief in the occult and was fascinated with the spirit world, but to mix that in with Holmes just rubs me wrong.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When you buy this book, make sure you have a free evening or weekend in front of you. Once started you cannot stop. The book demonstrates how the world is shrinking. Who would have imagined that a Tibetan would be able to write, perfectly, a book in the style of Conan Doyle. It is so realistic that I started to wonder if it was indeed a late discovered manuscript. Even though nothing is sacrificed for the excitement of the story the books imparts useful and interesting information about Buddhism, Shambala, the Dalai Lama, Tibet and its occupation by China. The story is an excellent script for a movie. It will rival the James Bond movies for excitement but with a serious twist.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In many respects, this is a fabulously entertaining book. In fact, it is one of those novels that are read in a day and finished with a sense of regret - a feeling that the novel has finished too soon. In that sense, this book is a complete success. It could barely be otherwise - filling in as it does the tantalising "missing years" of Sherlock Holmes: in between his tumble with Moriarty and his sudden appearance from the abyss as a bookseller to a startled Watson when Sir Arthur gave in to public pressure. So Holmes, in this "pastiche", makes his way to India and then to Tibet, in the company of a sidekick who will be superbly familiar to readers of Kipling. And what a "ripping yarn" it is too, and free from the necessity of emulating the deceptively unique voice of Watson, the author does a tremendous job. To relate any of the events would be to spoil the plot. To Holmes purists, there are one or two gaffes (from time to time he needs the odd concept explained, which in Conan Doyle's vision he would easily have known), but overall the narrative zips along with familiarity and style. Of course, to worry about canonical inaccuracies would be to miss one of the essential themes of this work: adopting Sherlock Holmes into a pro-Tibetan mindset makes the book such an argument for the freedom of Tibet and means more to so many more people than any Richard Gere fronted documentary. After all, Holmes is the epitome of civilisation and natural fairness, and his realisation of Tibetan buddhist essence is the ultimate in popular support. All in all, this is a fine book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Sherlock Holmes travels to Tibet with the Bengali master spy from Kim
After his battle with Moriarty at the Riechenbach falls Sherlock Holmes travels in disguise to India, where he meets Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, the master player of the Great Game... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Anon
Sherlock Holmes meets Darth Vader!
I started out loving this book. The setting in the Himalayas and the use of the "real history" of Sherlock Holmes whilst supposedly dead in the falls of Reichenbach is a... Read more
Published on 28 Mar 2001
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