Review: Smith, The Ardlamont Mystery

[truepenny]

The Ardlamont Mystery: The Real-Life Story Behind the Creation of Sherlock Holmes by Daniel Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Okay, first of all, the subtitle, "The Real-Life Story Behind the Creation of Sherlock Holmes," is so grossly misleading as to be a lie. The death of Cecil Hambrough in 1893 had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of Sherlock Holmes in 1887. What the subtitle means, when you unpack it properly, is that the two men who were the inspiration for Holmes (Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn--Bell is the famous one, but I'm willing to buy Smith's argument about Littlejohn being in there, too) were expert witnesses at the trial of Alfred Monson for the murder of Cecil Hambrough.

This is a very good book about the death of Cecil Hambrough, encumbered by an overly labored attempt to get Sherlock Holmes in there somehow. Smith does a good job of laying out the evidence, and I like his explanation of the anomalies and seeming contradictions, but Ardlamont is a terrible example if you want art imitates life/life imitates art, because these real-life Sherlocks failed in this particular instance. Monson, tried in Edinburgh, got off with the Scottish verdict of "not proven."



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