![]() Watson’s appearances in prologue and epilogue are pitch-perfect his stand-in on this case-fusty, grumpy Ivan-suffers by contrast. ![]() While the framework of a new narrator, pseudonyms, and deep masquerade creates space for improvisation, it’s a double-edged sword that invites comparison to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic duo. In addition to its overarching case, the book makes moves to address the “locked-room mystery” of Holmes as a person. With a compelling central mystery, the novel makes excellent use of familiar historical figures to evoke a complex social world. The task leads from Parisian art galleries to van Gogh’s deathbed, where suicide more closely resembles murder. They are tasked with finding several Old Masters paintings after the Louvre discovers that the ones they’ve been displaying are fakes. Holmes, masquerading as Monsieur Vernet, travels with a continental art historian called Ivan. ![]() Styled as a latter-day continuation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories, Timothy Miller’s novel encompasses famous painters and shady art world figures as Holmes attempts to track down a ring of forgers and solve Vincent van Gogh’s suspicious death. Watson, who did not participate in the case, begins to read. Watson inherits his private papers, and a posthumous sorting yields an unexpected treasure: an unpublished manuscript detailing a case in France. ![]() After a long retirement and longer life, Sherlock Holmes is dead. ![]()
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