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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Cullin has produced an ambitious, beautifully written novel that examines an enfeebled but still intellectually curious Holmes as he copes with the indignities of old age.
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Favorable
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Chicago Tribune Dick Adler
Conan Doyle used to complain, perhaps with some degree of jealousy, that most people believed Holmes was a real person and he was only the stenographer. Cullin, a gifted poet and novelist, takes that confusion and turns it into the highest level of art. [1 May 2005]
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Favorable
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Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp
Not so much a mystery as a deftly woven character sketch, Cullin's tale creates a Holmes who remains recognizable, but who's become more wistful and human as a result of the damage done by world wars and the passing of decades.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Leslie S. Klinger
Cullin's compassionate work happily reveals the detective to be a man after all. In short, while the book wears the garb of another Holmes adventure, Cullin's tale is a wise and touching examination of the human condition. [17 Apr 2005, p.R11]
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Favorable
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Salon Laura Miller
Proceeds in a circling, unchronological manner that would have driven its subject mad with impatience, but so be it. Most of us are not cold, precise or impervious to the softer passions Cullin evokes so stealthily and to such final, piercing effect.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Dan Chiasson
Cullin is an unusually sophisticated theorist of human nature, and this book is first and foremost an analysis of Holmes -- both as a fictional character and as an embodiment of the human drive to make fictions.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Carolyn See
This is a lovely, tenderhearted book, full of reserve, good manners, elegance of feeling. It's what a novel should be. Y
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Favorable
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Booklist Stephanie Zvirin
Under Cullin's sure hand, the vibrant, assured detective we know gives way to a man who looks back with regret at missed opportunities in a manner that makes the larger-than-life figure surprisingly human. [1 Feb 2005, p.945]
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Favorable
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Kirkus Reviews
The meat of the story is Cullin's searching characterization of this ultimate rationalist perturbed and disoriented by decades of political, social and climatic change; unmanned by his lingering survival into a world grown so complex he can no longer do what he had hitherto done to perfection: observed and made sense of things. This extra layer of realistic complexity makes Cullin's immensely moving seventh outing one of the best of all the Holmes pastiches.
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Favorable
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Library Journal Laurel Bliss
Cullin skillfully blends three distinct story lines and time periods while offering a fresh perspective on the Holmes legend. [15 Apr 2005, p.74]
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Alexandra Yurkovsky
Taken as a whole, the novel lacks the tautness of a Conan Doyle mystery, and, deprived of a mystery around which to work, Sherlock Holmes is rendered even less real.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Mark Harris
Cullin's imaginative leap beats Carr's constrictedly faithful homage ["The Italian Secretary"].
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Mixed
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Houston Chronicle Nora Seton
Cullin's imagery is remarkably rich but unable to keep lively the three plot threads as they slice and dice one another.
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