One of those irritating 3 for 2 books - attempt to take the sticker off and half the cover comes off with it. Barbaric.

Arthur & George is an masterful novel based on the true story of two fascinating people and actual events that occurred in Britan. It is hard to describe this book without being a plot spoiler! Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes investigates a criminal case, that appears to be a gross miscarriage of justice, centering around George Edalji. George is the somewhat naive son of a Parsee vicar of a small English church and a Scottish mother. George has no friends, he is shy, quiet and reserved, and is quite a study in contrast to the ever popular Arthur. Barnes unveils the history of these two characters in short staccato bursts, revealing each character's boyhood, development and eventual occupation, until finally their lives overlap. It is not only a story of victimization, it is a story of love, loss and what it means to be different - even if you don't believe you are - in an often cruel world. Surprisingly, it was George I admired more, when all was said and done. His quiet stoicism is often the metal which gets us all through life. Arthur & George is a great read, although the beginning chapters were making me slightly dizzy from the machine gun pace of developing their characters, eventually it slows down and becomes so engrossing that you have to continue to turn each page. I highly recommend it. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Julian Barnes is a great storyteller, I will be adding his other works to my wishlist. ( )

A random pick from my shelf dropped me in the English West Midlands at the turn of the 19th century. A mystery based on real events set during the senescence of Victorian ideals, starring the real human Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "Arthur & George" combines literary suspense with the themes of slowly declining empire. It explores what it means to be English at a time when what it means to be English is changing faster than it has ever done so before; it glances at the accelerating evolution of change in the time of full-steam-ahead Edwardian idealism. No longer is it exactly all right for a gentleman to express bald racism, instead a more insidious cousin allows for unfounded parlor and cigar chats, couched in pseudo-science, about the biological reason for Parsi 'blood lust.'

This is important, because George, our much-suffering protagonist, is the son of a Parsi vicar and his Scottish wife. Successful, but unremarkable and socially stunted Birmingham lawyer George Edalji is accused of bizarre and gruesome crimes against livestock in what seems, at best, a farcical miscarriage of police investigation. Outrage upon outrage ensues. Injustice reigns. The identity of the true perpetrator remains elusive and provides a mysterious background tension.

Doyle steps in and intertwines his own slightly-fictionalized biography with Edalji's. The novel shifts gears from a frenetic charge of clues and evidence to one more introspective. We learn of Doyle's complexes and conflicts. It is here that Barnes loses a bit of steam. While the reader champs at the bit to learn more about George and what really happened to George, we are instead derailed (to use a pervasive railroad symbolism in the book) into a yearning, self-exploratory quietness.

This, while arguably more literary, is a disappointment. Tensions are ultimately resolved and it feels like the question that was, overall, asked, is left as an exercise for the reader. ( )

Very interesting novel about a real-life relationship with Arthur Conan Doyle and a young man accussed of a terrible crime ( )

One of Barnes' best ( )