History and Mystery Reads

Rating: 7/10

• Accuracy: Solid on the Vienna of Freud and on Victorian drug culture, though the plot is a pastiche.
• Plot: Watson tricks Holmes into travelling to Vienna, where Sigmund Freud treats his cocaine addiction, and the two men solve a kidnapping.
• Clues: Adequate, with a playful psychological twist.
• Reveal: The case is minor; the real revelation concerns Holmes’s past.
• Science bonus: The pharmacology of cocaine addiction and Freud’s early clinical method, including hypnosis, are central, as Holmes’s detection meets psychoanalysis.

Presented as a lost manuscript by Dr Watson, the novel begins with Holmes in the grip of cocaine addiction, paranoid and convinced that his former mathematics tutor, Professor Moriarty, is a criminal genius. Watson and Mycroft lure Holmes to Vienna, where Sigmund Freud treats him. Then Holmes and Freud become involved in a kidnapping case involving a mysterious woman.

Nicholas Meyer’s novel was a bestseller and inspired a wave of Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Its central idea, pairing the great detective with the founder of psychoanalysis, is clever, and the portrayal of Holmes’s addiction is serious.

The book’s playful treatment of the Holmes canon is enjoyable, especially its reinterpretation of Moriarty. Watson’s voice is well imitated.

The weaknesses are that the mystery plot is thin and the action scenes, including a train chase, feel cinematic rather than Holmesian. Some readers dislike the psychological explanation of Holmes.

The 7 reflects an entertaining and influential pastiche. Meyer adapted it into a 1976 film, and it remains one of the best-known Holmes novels not written by Conan Doyle.