THE SEVEN PER-CENT SOLUTION: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.

by Nicholas -- Ed. Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 26, 1974

Sherlockians will rejoice over this latest ""find"" in the archives of Dr. Watson though we were somewhat stunned at the extent of the good Doctor's duplicity in concealing from us for too many years the sorry tale of Holmes' cocaine addiction and where it led. Yes, addiction, and only through the ingenuity of Watson was Holmes eventually cured by an eminent but controversial Viennese physician, one Dr. Freud, to whom cocaine was something of a sideline. We warn you, dear reader, that the sight of Holmes writhing in the agonies of withdrawal may upset your fond remembrances of the always unflappable and perfectly controlled detective. Almost as shocking will be the discovery that the fiendish Professor Moriarty, Holmes' arch enemy, was in fact a creature of the detective's paranoid cocaine delusions; in actual fact poor Moriarty -- a shy, quivering mathematics teacher -- was the most innocuous of men who had once been a tutor to Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. It is Moriarty who sets the action going and it moves along about as fast as the Continental Express to Vienna where the great detective and the great psychoanalyst are soon collaborating on a case which involves a dead munitions magnate and a deranged girl. Students of Holmes might be surprised to discover how closely his famous ""methods"" resembled those of Dr. Freud, only that the clues they seek are different. Under hypnosis Freud manages to elicit from the reticent Holmes some truly shocking revelations about his family -- Sherlock has at last met his intellectual match. Meyer has edited Watson's manuscript with care but occasionally his exasperation with the Doctor's ambiguities and omissions does come through.

Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION