The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes: A Mystery Featuring Shadwell Rafferty by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Two years have passed since Holmes (in Doyle's "The Adventure of the Dancing Men") captured Abe Slaney, a Chicago gangster who murdered the husband of Elsie Cubitt, his childhood love. Now, Elsie has gone missing, and clues suggest that Slaney--though reportedly dead--is behind the snatch. Goaded by a bogus ransom demand and an enigmatic spiritualist, and perhaps also by the great detective's uncharacteristic affection for the Widow Cubitt, Holmes and Watson commence a lively chase that will lead them from a slain Liverpool strumpet to a foggy standoff at a Manhattan church, a death-defying train ride across Pennsylvania, and a climactic shootout at a Windy City fraternal hall. Millett's veteran readers will identify the malign genius behind this conspiracy well before the last page, and they may be disappointed with the minor role played here by Minneapolis saloonkeeper and series regular Shadwell Rafferty. Yet the author adroitly captures the spirit of the Holmes canon, while adding to it a modern urgency of plot and an infectious curiosity about the historical sites around which this tale's action occurs. If this novel doesn't surpass Millett's Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders for eccentric intrigue, it certainly bristles with shocks and twists enough to curl Queen Victoria's hair. --J. Kingston Pierce

Book Description
Sherlock Holmes Disappears, Foul Play Suspected reads a New York headline. So begins the fifth mystery in Larry Millett's series, which takes Holmes on a chase across continents and on a labyrinthine journey into a dangerous and sinister mind. Only with the assistance of his large-hearted and amply proportioned old friend, Irish saloonkeeper Shadwell Rafferty, will the score be settled and justice delivered.

A letter, written in a secret cipher he recognizes all too well, tells the celebrated sleuth that Abe Slaney, the vicious murderer he once captured after a duel of wits, seems to have risen from the grave. And there is no time to waste. The beautiful woman for whom Slaney once killed is being held for ransom. But when it transpires that he-or someone-has presumed to impersonate Holmes himself, the great sleuth begins to glimpse a darker business than he expected. In desperate pursuit from London to New York to Chicago-from a foggy rendezvous in Lower Manhattan to a wild foray with Rafferty into the Windy City's underworld-Holmes soon has cause to wonder whether he will escape his captors or be framed for the crime himself.

Reader Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: Action-packed Holmes, January 28, 2003 Reviewer: booksforabuck from Dallas When Sherlock Holmes's beautiful love interest vanishes, Holmes and Watson are quick to investigate. What they find, however, is that they have been targeted by a ruthless plot to make them appear to be the kidnappers--and murderers. In a chase that takes them from London to New York and on to Chicago, Holmes and Watson battle to find the edge that will let them pull ahead of the plotters and rescue Elsie Cubitt before she suffers the 'fate worse than death.' Author Larry Millett has done his historical research and documents it in richly strewn footnotes. His accounts of city geography, turn of the (19/20th) century urban politics, and train travel all ring true. While the historical details ring true, the adventure itself has a bit of a hollow feel. It is difficult to imagine any criminal organization going to the troubles that Holmes's enemies go here. Surely it would have been easier to kill Holmes and Cubitt, if that was the goal, and then ruin their reputation later. Instead, they spend incredible amounts of money and energy for a pointless revenge. Fans of the Holmes oeuvre may not recognize the Sherlock presented by Millett. Instead of cerebral, this Holmes is physical and impulsive. Watson, in contrast, was presented sympathetically with, I think, a properly balanced sense of loyalty and dogged determination. Doyle's Watson was never stupid--just an everyman like all of us who could not hope to do more than bask in Holmes's brilliance. So too, Millett's Watson is a man of action and integrity with solid if unexceptional intelligence.