Workmanlike but rather prosaic.
A tale of two detectives.
In this dry foray into the ever fascinating life of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), celebrity biographer Sandford (Union Jack: JFK’s Special Relationship with Great Britain, 2017, etc.) seeks to “show the ways in which Doyle himself consistently applied both the intellect and innate sense of justice (if not always the mercurial powers of observation) of his immortal creation.” It may come as something of a surprise to Sherlock Holmes’ legions of fans that his creator was often personally involved in real-life criminal cases. Doyle, a successful author who also maintained a medical practice, “consistently came to the defense of the persecuted or oppressed”—and “if the aggrieved party happened to be a lady, so much the better.” Sandford examines a number of cases Doyle took a personal interest in, including the famous disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926 and his defense of the later-debunked photograph of the Cottingley fairies, which Sandford calls Doyle’s “most notorious literary act,” but he largely focuses on two scandalous crimes: the 1906 case of the young Anglo-Indian lawyer George Edalji—the subject of Julian Barnes’ outstanding novel, Arthur & George—who was accused of writing a series of anonymous, inflammatory letters to his father, the Rev. Edalji, as well as mutilating cattle. He was found guilty and imprisoned. Sandford meticulously describes Doyle’s involvement in the case. He met with George and became an ardent supporter of his innocence in the pursuit of justice. Doyle insisted that his persecution “owed more to racial prejudice and to rank blundering on the part of the authorities.” Doyle also became an active participant in the case of Oscar Slater, who supposedly robbed and murdered an elderly Glasgow woman. Doyle “spoke persuasively about the shortcomings and contradictions of Slater’s prosecution.” Sandford’s discussion of Doyle, Harry Houdini, and spiritualism is a rehash of his earlier book, Masters of Mystery (2011).
Workmanlike but rather prosaic.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-07956-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
