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The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
From Library Journal Pirie's impressive debut novel features Arthur Conan Doyle as a penurious doctor caught up in a web of deceit. In medical school, young Doyle is drawn to the charismatic Dr. Bell, even though he considers Bell to be somewhat of a charlatan. Surely making deductions from tiny clues isn't what medicine is all about. But Doyle needs Bell's help to uncover the mystery surrounding one of his patients. The beautiful Heather Grace is being stalked by an ominous, disappearing figure on a bicycle. Or is...  read more
Reader Reviews The first case for Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Joseph Bell, September 4, 2003 Reviewer: Lawrance M. Bernabo from The Zenith City: Duluth, MN United States Those who have admired the cases of Sherlock Holmes and found "The 7 Percent Solution" to be a fresh look at the first great detective of popular fiction will find a different game afoot in "The Patient's Eye." The intriguing premise for David Pirie's novel is that Arthur Conan Doyle is playing the Watson role to Dr. Joseph Bell, the writer's real-life mentor in medical school at Edinburough and the model for Holmes. Doyle starts off in the role of Scully, unable to accept that the practice of medicine has anything to do with Dr. Bell's deductive reasoning from minute clues, but in due course he becomes a true believer in Bell's pioneering work in forensic medicine. The case involves Miss Heather Grace, a young heiress who has been traumatized by an attack by a lunatic who murdered her parents. Now Miss Grace is subject to visions of a figure who follows her on her bicycle. The conceit here is that Pirie is working backwards from several of the cases from the Holmes canon, most obviously "The Solitary Cyclist," but also "The Speckled Band" and "Wisteria Lodge." The idea is that Doyle later fictionalized these stories from the "real" events contained herein. It was a good move on Pirie's part not to simply offer up the "true" story of one the original Holmes mysteries or to try and tackle one of the "biggies" in the canon. There is also more romance than you find in Doyle, what with the young doctor falling for his patient. Most importantly, Pirie is able to present Doyle and Bell as interesting substitutes for Watson and Holmes. There is no pretense of friendship between the pair; they are teacher and student. Doyle is not as much the inept foil that Watson serves in the stories (indeed, he solves several initial mysteries before getting in over his head) and Bell is arguably more charismatic than the driven Holmes. There are times when Pirie follows the Doyle model too closely and the gallery of suspects is rather overdrawn, but as the first effort in what is clearly going to be a developing series, "The Patient's Eyes" is worth the reading. The execution is not quite up to the ambitious idea, but that is a minor concern. The one caveat is that you should read over the original Sherlock Holmes stories on which this novel is based to better appreciate how Pirie is using them in this story.
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