His Last Bow (story collection)

"'It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you. I should not have intruded it upon your attention had you not shown some incredulity the other day.'" (pg. 42)

I was nervous about this one, despite the general quality and appeal of the Sherlock Holmes stories, because my previous reading experience had told me that the later Holmes stories (particularly Casebook) are not as good as the earlier ones. Maybe it was just my lowered expectations, or the fact that I needed something untaxing on a day of illness, but I really enjoyed His Last Bow and burned through it at an unreal pace without once wanting to do anything else.

With the exception of 'His Last Bow', which is a piece of somewhat clunky but endearing World War One show more propaganda, the stories in this collection are rather strong. They are not on par with the best that Conan Doyle wrote, but they are engrossing and the mysteries sometimes transcend their function. Some of the denouements are predictable, because we know the formula by now, but, if we're honest, we're really just here to be in Holmes' company as he's on the scent. The writing manages to be completely effortless. If you've read the better collections, there's no reason to be tentative about this one. show less

Quite a remarkable Sherlock collection. I am amazed at how cohesive a whole is formed from these several separate stories, and I can’t remember the last time I had such an enjoyable experience. I strongly disliked this collection at first, and I am still amazed at how drasticallly my opinion changed as the stories were crafted.

The book opens with a preface about how Sherlock retired to the South Downs to keep bees. I don’t know why this book starts out with that image, but I suppose it is partly Doyle’s way of assuring his readers that he will not kill off Holmes as he did before. That said, although the idea of a man living peacefully alone with a bunch of bees can be soothing, the preface felt, to me, to be rather melancholic. show more No matter how successful his career, he has finished with it now. Although he was once young and strong and surrounded by admirers, now he is old and alone, and he takes no interest in the concerns of the police or the mysteries of everyday life. Earlier, his mind rebelled at stagnation, and now he seems to desire it. The stories, then, before they have even begun, have already been presented as historical cases from a now long-retired detective who, as far as we know, has no contact with anyone from his former life at Baker Street. I think retirement can be a beautiful thing, and I don’t blame Sherlock for wanting rest, but his total separation from everything he’s known is described almost as an afterthought, and I found it to be a little depressing. (Plus, I felt a bit cheated dramatically. How can I worry about Sherlock putting himself in danger if I know he’s going to retire to the South Downs?)

But then the stories started, and oh! Such stories! Even at this late point in the series, it is easy to see character development, and—was Doyle getting sentimental?—at least two different events in two different stories that demonstrate the genuine warmth between Holmes and Watson. One of the stories begins with Watson explaining that he had just had a message from Holmes to publish one his accounts of their adventures, and this the first occasion to show that even in retirement, Holmes is still in touch with Watson. And these stories are magnificent. There is one that fleshes out his brother Mycroft and showcases the siblings’ cooperation and respect. We get to see Watson’s suffering as he is helpless to save his friend in “The Dying Detective,” and we see a very sick Sherlock trying to recover his health in a completely different milieu in “Devil’s Foot.” These are two of my favorite Sherlock stories, period. They’re definitely in my top five, and possibly in my top three. Sherlock is also definitely thinking with his heart in this collection; his genuine worry about an innocent lady and his desire to protect her drive the “Carfax” story, and his kindness keeps coming to the fore in many of these tales. The tone is softer, the characters (after all these years) are open and trusting, and even poor Lestrade gets to shine. Holmes and Watson have come to rely on his support, and he can be depended on to back them up. It’s a far cry from the awkward and competitive relationship they had early on.

And then, at the end of all of it, comes “His Last Bow.” Right from he beginning, this story is different. It’s told in 3rd person, and it takes place post-bees. This is a much older, steadier Sherlock Holmes. No longer is he working to support himself, or even sleuthing “for the game’s own sake”—not here. Now, the stakes are higher, the need is greater, and a threat so terrible in its magnitude has drawn Sherlock out of retirement and plunged him once more into his former profession. And now, the preface finally makes sense for me. Sherlock retires, and then Sherlock keeps going. In this story, we see for the first time the work that he has accomplished during his time on the South Downs. So even then, he has not been idle. And now, afterward, Sherlock comes back when he is needed, so that he can continue to do what he had always done. I like the idea of more, of change, of surprise. Just when you think everything has ended, there is still more to come. I like the idea of Sherlock rising up from obscurity, of standing tall, of doing, of saving, of protecting. He came back from the dead, as it were, in “The Return of Sherlock Holmes,” but this, this is his real resurrection. And it took my breath away.

Last of all, three of my favorite Sherlock Holmes quotes are found in this collection:
“I play the game for the game’s own sake.”
“I thought I knew my Watson.”
And finally,
“Quick, man, if you love me.”
Beautiful moments, all. show less

This should have been the last Sherlock Holmes story Conan Doyle wrote; being set on the very eve of the First World War (and written in 1917), it has a world-weary and seemingly significantly older Holmes and Watson foiling the plans of a German agent Von Bork to steal vital military and other technical data, and feels in all respects like the end of an era, including being written in the third person, unlike the earlier stories. In fact Conan Doyle published a further twelve stories throughout the last decade of his life, the 1920s, collected together as The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, stories widely seen as considerably inferior to the earlier stories and novellas featuring the Great Detective. This one is a real masterpiece with a show more strong impact on the reader. show less

(Three-and-a-half stars, really...)

Conan Doyle's penultimate collection of Holmes short stories really shows the central elements of his work so well: bracing atmospheres, a delightful central pairing, and an eye for acts of murderous legerdemain on the one hand; stilted dialogue, lack of suspects, and often one-dimensional characters on the other.

All of the stories here are very enjoyable, although I'd probably rank none of them on my list of "Top Ten". Wisteria Lodge, which opens the collection, is almost a novella and certainly has a lot in common - thematically and structurally - with the early novels. The Red Circle and Lady Frances Carfax also offer nothing new in terms of ideas. However, all three stories have an show more expertly-rendered atmosphere, and play well along the relationship of Holmes and Watson. The Devil's Foot does the same, although it has the added benefit of a truly unsettling mystery set-up. It's easy to see from these stories that, by this point, Conan Doyle knows his strengths lie in the Holmes/Watson pairing and the unsettling atmospheres, and he jumps at the chance to provide those.

As with all his works, the dialogue can sometimes be stilted. Not so much with the main characters, or the recurring police inspectors, but with the guest characters, who often lack strong voices (although I'm sure some fans will ascribe this to errors on Doctor Watson's part, and not on the author's?). And interestingly (or unfortunately?) most of the stories have very few suspects - indeed, sometimes we only seem to meet one person connected to the deceased in any detail, which may give the game away. In fact, the question tends to be not "whodunnit?" but "howdunnit?". But perhaps this is fair enough, since the overall emphasis is often on the implausibility or seeming incomprehensibility of the case, rather than the nature of the crime itself.

The Bruce-Partington Plans is an intriguing story, a fusion of spy and detective work which - although, again, means the revelation of the culprit is relatively unimportant - has a fun, pulpy sense of 'the chase'. It allows Holmes and Watson to work as a wonderful team, with a cameo by Holmes' evasive brother Mycroft. The Dying Detective's plot twists will fool no one, but if you've read all the rest of the stories to date, there's plenty to enjoy in a story that so feeds off the relationship of our two heroes.

And finally there is the title story, His Last Bow. I'm not sure if it was written genuinely as a finale, but it certainly is chronologically. This is a disappointment in some ways, since our heroes feature in it only for a short time. But there's a true sense of separation and loss at the end which affected me a little. Unfortunately, the story itself isn't very good: the dialogue is arch, the villain zero-dimensional, and the actions of our heroes at the end (especially given it is set just days before WWI breaks out) would probably not be advised by the Home Office.

In closing: this is not a collection for Holmes newcomers. But it's certainly a vital part of the canon, and well worth a look. show less

The majority of stories within this collection are par for the course of Sherlock Holmesian mysteries, but I found the last story rather odd and shall thus concern myself with a discussion of it rather than treating every story as an individual case within the whole. I did a double-take upon starting to read this story, since unlike the others it is not told from the perspective of Dr. Watson - a trifling matter in terms of literary form, but one which at once put me at odds with the story. It sounded almost like Doyle was attempting to sneak a non-Sherlock story into the collection, since Holmes wasn’t even revealed until halfway through, and he honestly could have been played by any counter-espionage character. The resolution of the show more case was also rather unsatisfactory, since it did not rely on Holmes’ deductive methods and barely seemed to be the point of the tale. Obviously the resolution of each mystery is the focus of each of Doyle’s Sherlock stories, but the method of resolution is what makes them stand out from other mysteries of their ilk! show less

This collection has some of the most memorable Holmes stories, but the final tale, "His Last Bow," manages to be both perfunctory and jingoistic.

Sublime. The greatest literary detective of all time in some of his best cases.

There is an awful lot for the Holmes Fan, and the Watson fan, or indeed anyone coming new to the stories, to enjoy here. From a low-life London lying in the grip of a fog/smog that renders the city sinister, to Holmes working at the behest of his brother Mycroft to ensure the safety of the Realm (again!), to Holmes and Watson happening across devilish goings on in sleepy rural locations, to misunderstandings being resolved in the very, very nick of time.

If you’ve never read a Sherlock Holmes story before then here, at the end of the canon, is actually not a bad place to start. The adventures encompass all that is Holmes and Watson: London shrouded in fog, show more an English countryside shrouded in mystery, macabre and apparently unconnected events, a whiff of the supernatural and, of course, Holmes and Watson dispensing justice. Not law, justice.

There is also ‘His Last Bow’. For once not told through the pen of Doctor John Watson and with a spectacular concluding paragraph. Never mind going over a waterfall with your hands round the throat of a criminal mastermind, what English detectives do at the conclusion of arguably their greatest triumph in England’s most perilous hour is growl the sort of words that would give a spine to a Frenchman, and then make a remark about taking money off the very cad they have just probably delivered (rightly) to the gallows. Marvellous!

Also clear here are Holmes’s frailties. Well, one in particular, smoking. Holmes smokes so much in the stories in this book that I, who don’t smoke as a rule, enjoyed a cigar. Oddly, at no point in the prose does Sir Arthur describe Holmes’s mouth as tasting like a badger’s arse in the morning, which was my experience.

These quibbles aside, there’s so much to enjoy that I’m already looking forward to re-reading. Possibly from the sort of smoke-scented arm-chair that Holmes appears to solve all his cases from.

Who among us hasn’t considered what we’d do if a cardboard box containing two ears preserved in salt was delivered to us? Complain to DHL? Possibly, but after that we’d obviously retain the services of a coke fiend and chain smoker. And again which of us would not, at the drop of a hat, send our dearest chum off across Europe to track down a missing aristocrat, while trailing him disguised as a Frenchman. Yet here such events just seem, well, right.

Which is not to say that things are not occasionally disturbing. No matter how vile the back-alleys of London, Conan Doyle reserves the most unsettling horrors for the green and unpleasant land of the English countryside. The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot is the perfect Sherlock Homes story. It has Holmes suffering from excess and yet unable to compromise his strict regime of lounging and strong tobacco, it has Holmes and Watson relocated to unfamiliar surroundings, it has the implication of supernatural goings-on and, pure delight, it has Holmes and Watson in their greatest roles, proving that they are agents of justice, not instruments of the law. They alone discover the truth and when they do they are judge, jury, executioner. This is at once chilling and just; it is one thing to read of Watson embarking on an adventure after pocketing his trusty service revolver, quite another for the pair of them to assume the mantle of justice themselves. As always, their actions are impeccable.

The stand out story though, even among a field of excellence, is His Last Bow. This time, there’s no mysterious foreign power, it’s the Germans, they are a threat and Holmes, pulled from a retirement of beekeeping, proves more than a match for the sharpest of the German secret service. In a neat twist it is revealed that although antagonists, Holmes had rendered service to the family of his enemy, and the enemy of England, in earlier, happier, days.

What is uncompromised is the effect of crime on the innocent. People do die in the pages of this book, not always justly (but, as this is Holmes, always avenged). show less