After The Marriage Plot, the list of novels I had wished to review had simmered. I'm glad I took this one out of the stacks of "New Fiction" from the Vancouver Public Library: it was a short, easy read, and I was a bit worried I had been inflating the ever-useless arbitrary scores.The Facts
Length: 180 pages.
Publisher: Short Books.
This is O'Connell's third novel.
Quick Summary
This novel is a fictionalized biographical account of Bertram Fletcher Robin's collaboration with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write a great detective story. Taking place in the early 1900s, the novel imagines Doyle "in between" the life of his most popular creation, Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes had been "killed off" by Doyle in the story "The Final Problem", but was later brought back by Doyle in the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles - this latter novel's creation is what concerns The Baskerville Legacy).
The story is told in first-person (Bertram is the narrator).
The Good
I can say that I couldn't put this book down once I had picked it up. But that's not to say the plot is particularly engaging, the novel's characters exciting, or the action compelling. It's a note on how short it feels - the action does move quickly, if not to any poignant point. So the novel doesn't drag, and the author's style is, for better or worse, invisible.
The Bad
Disclosure: while I've gotten a couple steps onto the staircase of Sherlock Holmes canon, I've yet to read The Hound of the Baskervilles. Does this limit the nuances of what-is-to-come out of the "collaboration" between Robinson and Doyle? Yes. Does that forgive Legacy's flaccid characters or half-hearted motion? No.
Perhaps it's because the novel is a "biofic" that I felt the characters dry. It's conceivable that O'Connell - while taking some artistic liberties - wanted to take a picture of English history, and run it through photoshop, instead of painting his own canvas of radically different historical figures. But the result is that everything becomes muted: the "friendship" between Doyle and Robinson, the "romance" between Gladys and Robinson, the breakdown between the former and the reconciliation of the latter. The novel's subtitle implies some sort of drama, but I sure as hell couldn't find it.
The Good
The description of Dartmoor and the rolling fog was charming. O'Connell seems to have more of a grasp on his English setting than on his lackluster characters.
And maybe it's the guilt, but the book did make me want to read The Hound of the Baskervilles. Maybe I'll have to come back to O'Connell, after I have.
Final Thoughts
Colourless and unexciting. The actual writing wasn't bad, but you can read better.
Arbitrary Score: 1.8 out of 5.
