Pirie's third novel, like its predecessors, The Patient's Eyes
and The Night Calls
, evokes the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories with a gripping plot and psychologically sophisticated characters. Again, Doyle plays the Watson role to the Holmes of Dr. Joseph Bell, the real-life inspiration for the master detective. Doyle is a complex, wounded figure, still struggling with the loss of his beloved at the hands of a madman, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream. Cream has confined Doyle to an isolated cabin at the story's outset, but the prisoner manages a desperate escape and soon is able to reconnect with his mentor and partner. In pursuit of their ingenious quarry, Doyle and Bell face an eerie mystery in a small seaside town haunted by the apparent reappearance of a legendary witch. Pirie's subtle storytelling gifts, which may remind ghost story aficionados of M.R. James and Sherlockians of The Hound of the Baskervilles
, elevate this novel far above the run-of-the-mill pastiche. (Sept.)
