Charles Phillips (1) (1962–)

The Adventure of the British Museum was an impulse buy during a trip to London a couple of months ago – appropriately enough, from the gift shop of the British Museum. I don't regret the purchase, but I probably would never have bothered if not for that whim. The book's a fun little diversion and, in truth, that's all it needs to be.

The puzzles are easy enough at first, which helps build your confidence, but the repeated 'turn-the-wheel-to-match-the-hieroglyph-to-the-letter' instructions show more were facsimiles of puzzles rather than puzzles; they're impossible to get wrong, and the deciphering gets laborious. Happily, the puzzles get a bit tougher towards the end of the story, though there was one (the sheet music) that just seemed completely non-intuitive, and I had to resort to the 'Hints' page at the end just to even get close to an idea of what I needed to do. There was also a straight-up 'find x' equation that unexpectedly had me trying to remember what I was taught in GCSE Maths class half a lifetime ago.

But where I really faltered was with the story: I just had a hard time buying any of it and couldn't get invested. The Sherlock Holmes trappings are superficial but agreeable enough: codes, clues, hidden passages, disguises and so on, though neither Holmes nor Watson really had anything of the taste or colour of Arthur Conan Doyle's originals. The prose is also crude ("you sit long-sufferingly", for example) and painfully functional, whereas Doyle was ornate and yet very readable.

The storytelling left a lot to be desired: anarchists are planning to assassinate the King, but randomly decide to let Sherlock Holmes know of this and feed him a series of arbitrary clues in the British Museum to give him a chance to foil them. The villain just tells Holmes in a note that she wants to give him "a chance to stop the plot" for no reason whatsoever, and it was really hard for me to stay on board with what was going on. I don't expect Conan Doyle levels of plotting in what's essentially a façade for a puzzle book, but there should be something. The puzzles are the book's raison d'être, and they are just fine. The concept's just far too confected for my tastes. show less

Most of these were interesting, although some don’t seem very mysterious, and their inclusion is a bit of a stretch. Some of the people I was expecting to read about weren’t included at all, although I think they are probably featured in other books of this same series. It’s divided into sections by type of mystery (e.g. disappearance), and each section is chronological, which was wonderful. There are illustrations—portraits, photos of interest, and other pictures of the people show more involved. There is also plenty of background information, with pictures of vehicles and terrain, and maps, too, to help set the scene. This book also makes clear what is known and what is conjecture. It explores a few different theories for the different people involved, and it tells what evidence has led to those suppositions. In the hands of a lesser author, this fascinating and slightly morbid subject matter might be used only for its shock value; here, however, the book’s emphasis is exactly where it belongs: on the historical record, and the analysis of facts. show less

This is a useful overview of castles and how they were built using examples from Guedelon Castle, the experimental castle being built in France. If you've seen Secrets of The Castle with Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, then a lot of this book will be familiar. The photographs are the best part of this book and allow for many parts to be explained well.

This lavishly illustrated, large format (9 x 11.6") paperback is a delight to read. Although Charles Phillips tends toward excessive cultural relativism, the incredibly bloodthirsty nature of the ancient Aztecs and Mayans is in no way diminished. Phillips even touches on the repulsion that Cortez and his Spaniards, no strangers to violence themselves, felt upon entering Teotihuacan.

The quality of the paper is revealed by the book's weight of nearly five pounds. In my opinion, this book is show more worth obtaining for the superb illustrations and photographs alone. show less