This book includes six tales of mystery. It was written in 1923, four years before the last of the Sherlock Holmes books.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is obviously at his best at mystery rather than terror. The tales of mystery really do remind one of Sherlock Holmes. In one, one character states that if you have exhausted all the possibilities except one, that last remaining must be the truth no matter how farfetched it appears. In all the tales, he sets up mysteries that are solved in the Holmes style. Though not Holmes, some of the characters are quite interesting, and it is fun to try to figure out the answers to the mysteries.The Mystery stories are all suspenseful and meticulously constructed. The Lost Special was very complex for a short story, as was The Man with the Watches; both of these stories are dramatic and exciting renditions of captivating mysteries. The Black Doctor is similarly exciting, reminding us that a good murder mystery is as cerebral as it is visceral.
