The Crack in the Lens

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The Crack in the Lens (eBook) Pub. Date: 3/8/2011 Publisher: Foolscap & Quill
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The Crack in the Lens Pub. Date: 12/23/2010 Publisher: Foolscap & Quill

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Overview
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Meet the Author

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Overview

If someone had asked Sherlock Holmes later in the year, there is little doubt that he would have said his life began that spring day in 1871 when he met Violet Rushdale upon the moors and ended in the winter some months distant. His mother would have disputed the former claim, and many, both friend and foe, would come to deny the latter. Yet what happened that year nearly cost him his life and his sanity, and strongly influenced the man he was to become. It is well known that the toughest steel that makes the sharpest swords must be plunged into the fire, then beaten and reshaped. So it is as well with the best and wisest of men.

Editorial Reviews

Roger Johnson

"The Crack in the Lens ... tells an engrossing story of the boy Holmes and at the same time explores the reasons why the man Holmes turned out as he did – a brilliant, unconventional, and apparently emotionless righter of wrongs. In this account Mycroft, Sherrinford and Sherlock are the sons of Squire Siger Holmes of Mycroft Manor in Yorkshire... a colourful and appropriately atmospheric basis for a tale that seems to owe as much to Emily Brontë as to Arthur Conan Doyle."

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780971855250
Publisher: Foolscap & Quill
Publication date: 12/23/2010
Pages: 292
Sales rank: 808,403
Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.70 (d)

Meet the Author

Darlene became an avid follower of Sherlock Holmes when she was in high school and she attended some meetings of the Hudson Valley Sciontists in her teens. Since then she has corresponded with a number of Sherlockians around the world and been a member of a number of Sherlockian groups including Dr. Watson’s Neglected Patients and the Hounds of the Internet. Darlene’s first contact with the Baker Street Irregulars was an exchange of correspondence with Dr. Julian Wolff in the 1970s and she wrote two “trifling monograms” which were published by the Baker Street Journal in the mid-1980s when Philip Shreffler was the editor. She is writing a sequel trilogy which follows Sherlock Holmes through his years at the university and into his early career.

Darlene A. Cypser was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but lived in Poughkeepsie, New York, during elementary school and high school before returning to Norman, Oklahoma for college and law school. In 1987 she moved to Boulder, Colorado where she practiced law until 1999 when she began producing and selling movies, and running other businesses. Darlene is currently producing a movie set in 18th century England based on Alfred Noyes’ poem The Highwayman.

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Philip_K_Jones

Posted March 2, 2011

First in a very promising series

This book is the first of a series of novels which Ms. Cypser is planning to describe Sherlock's life through University and his early career as a detective. In contrast to a number of recent Sherlockian efforts, this book was written and edited by a professional. I found only one trivial error, although I am sure there must be a few more. The writing is clear and direct, with prose that evokes the Yorkshire Dales and the people who have lived there from time out of mind. For a while I found myself recalling the first seasons of the series, "All Creatures, Great and Small" with it lovely scenery and wonderful characters. The story is sad, with Sherlock going through a late adolescence and having to cope with a very demanding tutor, one Professor James Moriarty. We are introduced to Mycroft and to their older brother, Sherrinford, as well as to Squire Siger and Mrs. Holmes. The wild and haunting scenery is a backdrop for a tale of madness, love and deceit with a few side trips into the normal world of family and friends. Sherlock's sickly childhood and family relations are explored in some depth as part of coming to understand his nature. There are several questions left unanswered, but I suspect that the author has a few more facts to pass along at opportune times. Certain actions by Squire Holmes and Professor Moriarty require explanation, and the futures of several introduced characters leave room for growth and development. The story ends with a recapitulation of the events in "The Gloria Scott" that put Sherlock firmly on path to be the world's first consulting detective. This is not a happy book nor is it light reading. It is a tale about forging a boy into a man, as one heats, pounds, tempers and quenches steel. It took me several sittings and I read it in the dead of Winter, a bad time to face snow in the fells and bitterness in the heart. This is a book that provides explanations for some of the odd qualities we have all remarked in the Master. Those qualities could not have come easily or pleasantly. Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones, January, 2011
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