Sherlock Holmes: Mysteries of the Victorian Era

Disappointing, at least he first of the stories in this small collection. The author failed to consider that he is writing for people in the 21st century. Doyle could have written about a test tube full of liquid Nitrogen in 1890 and gotten away with it. Any educated contemporary reader knows you can't fill a test tube with liquid Nitrogen and have it slowly evaporate from an open glass test tube.

The next 4 stories each get progressively better. I enjoyed the last one quite a bit. Jarring though was the use of the term Ms for unmarried ladies. Its important to avoid modern words in a book set 120 years ago.

This is a collection of five cases, written up by Dr. Watson without benefit of his notes, which had been lost. There is no particular theme to the stories and they represent varied plots and they are placed at various times... On the whole, this collection was disappointing. My initial reaction was colored by my surprise at the solution to the first mystery and my disbelief of that solution. The other tales do not present that kind of error and some are fairly interesting. However, the confused cultural setting in the "Pinson Manor" detracted from the story's readability, and the solution of Jackthorn Circle was a disappointment, leaving two satisfactory stories out of five.
Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones, March 2004