Sherlock Holmes and the Affair in Transylvania

by Gerry O'Hara

Overview

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson are returning to London from Bucharest after the great detective has interceded in a delicate matter relating to the Rumanian Royal House. As they depart from Bucharest they receive their mail forwarded from London. Doctor Watson opens a distressing letter from his niece, Mina, now living in Budapest with her young husband, Janos, a newly qualified lawyer. It seems that the young man has not returned from a business assignment in Transylvania. Holmes advises that he and Watson should postpone their return to Baker Street. Watson wires ahead and they are met at the station by Mina and her friend, Lucy Westenra. Holmes is duly intrigued by their stay overnight at the home of Dr Westenra in the grounds of the asylum of which Dr Westenra is the Administrator. Holmes suspects that letters from the young lawyer may have been forged, or written under duress. Next day they set off for Castle Dracula.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780920368
Publisher:	MX Publishing
Publication date:	11/02/2011
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.53(d)

Editorial Reviews

O'Hara makes only minimal changes to the plot of Stoker's Dracula, while lifting scenes and dialogue wholesale from it, in this subpar pastiche that unconvincingly introduces the supernatural into the hyper-rational Baker Street universe. Essentially Holmes takes over Van Helsing's role after Watson's niece, Mina, asks for help locating her vanished husband, Janos Svbado, the Jonathan Harker stand-in, who's unaccounted for after a visit to Dracula's castle. Holmes and Watson journey to Transylvania, where they have the exact same encounters with wolves and a mysterious coachman that Harker did in the original, before meeting the vampire-king himself. Unlike authors like Loren Estleman or Fred Saberhagen, O'Hara doesn't even attempt to have Holmes wrestle with a phenomenon outside his experience, and implausibly has the great detective adopting the use of garlic and other wards against the undead without batting a deerstalker. Unfortunately, the best-written passages are lifted directly, and without attribution, from Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," and the author rushes the final showdown between Holmes and Dracula, robbing it of any dramatic power. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly