The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

Quick review for a short story. I listened to this audio book on my drive into work. In the past I've listened to BBC Radio dramatizations of Sherlock Holmes stories. I believe this is the first actual reading of one that I've listened to.

This is not one of Doyle's best Sherlock stories. The start of the story has Sherlock rambling on about a hat trying to discover all he can about it's owner, and I find myself wonder why the great Sherlock Holmes is wasting his intellect on simply trying to return a man's hat.

Eventually the story does pick up as their seems to be a jewel heist involved. This was a free book from Audible, and only about 45 minutes, so well worth my time for the price.

About the Audio book: This edition was read by the actor Alan Cummings. He's an excellent reader in the sense of his pronunciation/inflection. He did a bit of dialect and you could distinguish between someone educated such as Sherlock or Watson from a working man. I was unable to tell the difference between Sherlock and Watson however. He does a good, but not great job reading it.

Alan Cummings does a masterful job of portraying the legendary detective on this seasonably themed adventure.

This is a short story not a full book, but Audible.com gave it away as a Christmas present to members this year. Not a bad Sherlock Holmes short story. Has a little Christmas redemption in it. But it is a good example while I am not a fan of Sherlock Holmes. He uses cultural concepts to solve mysteries (which he has to do) that are often dated and wrong. And there is no humility in the writing. So Holmes finds a man using a lost hat and solves a crime. But one of the way he find the man is to look for an intelligent man (because his hat size is large).

A slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-adventure-of-the-blue-carbuncle-by-arthur-conan-doyle/