The first case for Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Joseph Bell, 5 Sep 2003

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

The case involves Miss Heather Grace, a young heiress who has been traumatized by an attack by a lunatic who murdered her parents. Now Miss Grace is subject to visions of a figure who follows her on her bicycle. The conceit here is that Pirie is working backwards from several of the cases from the Holmes canon, most obviously "The Solitary Cyclist," but also "The Speckled Band" and "Wisteria Lodge." The idea is that Doyle later fictionalized these stories from the "real" events contained herein. It was a good move on Pirie's part not to simply offer up the "true" story of one the original Holmes mysteries or to try and tackle one of the "biggies" in the canon. There is also more romance than you find in Doyle, what with the young doctor falling for his patient.

Most importantly, Pirie is able to present Doyle and Bell as interesting substitutes for Watson and Holmes. There is no pretense of friendship between the pair; they are teacher and student. Doyle is not as much the inept foil that Watson serves in the stories (indeed, he solves several initial mysteries before getting in over his head) and Bell is arguably more charismatic than the driven Holmes. There are times when Pirie follows the Doyle model too closely and the gallery of suspects is rather overdrawn, but as the first effort in what is clearly going to be a developing series, "The Patient's Eyes" is worth the reading. The execution is not quite up to the ambitious idea, but that is a minor concern. The one caveat is that you should read over the original Sherlock Holmes stories on which this novel is based to better appreciate how Pirie is using them in this story.

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