Keefauver’s MaxiReview

There are moments when, reading whatever the latest Sherlockian pastiche is, that I feel very, very old. They just don’t thrill me the way they did in the 1970s, and I’m never sure whether it is that the pastiches have gotten worse, or I’ve just become numb to their charms. The reason might also be that I didn’t have the Canon as thoroughly embedded in my head as I do now. It’s harder to accept a Watson who doesn’t write quite as well as the original, or put up with a Sherlock who doesn’t seem any smarter than I am. Especially irritating are the authors who act like they can’t move beyond certain Canonical boundaries . . . staying on the same playing field as Conan Doyle only makes their work all that much harder. We have yet to see a Hank Aaron come along to best Doyle’s Babe Ruth.

Late last year, I got a flyer from Glade Press for their new book, The Childhood of Sherlock Holmes by Mona Morstein. Galde made one mistake that almost cost them a customer — they hid the flyer behind another flyer for their previous publication, The Moriarty Principle by Rolf Canton, a book I had bought in Minneapolis some time before, and didn’t really care for (the best part of the book is the full page photos of Norwegian Explorer chiefs). I was about to toss the flyer out, when I noticed the second one behind it. Having met Mona Morstein in Minneapolis, during one particularly danger-filled symposium outing (a story you’ll have to ask to hear about, as I’m not putting that gem in print), I figured I’d give her a chance, despite the publisher’s track record.

It was a decision I’d soon be truly delighted with.

The Childhood of Sherlock Holmes: The Butler’s Tale is a book that beats out anything larger publishers have thrown at us lately. In fact, reading this book I was very nearly transported back to my younger days as a Sherlockian, when the landscape was brand-new, fresh, and exciting. Why? Because Mona Morstein dared to do something that most Sherlockian writers, myself included, are scared witless to try: she wrote up a convincing tale of Sherlock Holmes’s youth. Outside of works inspired by other media (the American Young Sherlock Holmes and the English Young Sherlock), the field is a very empty one. Sherlockian scholarship at the outer reaches of Canonical knowledge has touched on the subject occasional (in this very publication, I’m happy to say), but that’s been about it.

With Morstein’s work, that has happily changed. The Childhood of Sherlock Holmes: The Butler’s Tale begins as so many novels on Holmes begin: with an explanation of how this story came to be. But with this novel we get more than just a preface about the editor’s finding of the manuscript: we get five chapters of a London crime reporter’s quest to get the real story on Sherlock Holmes after the detective’s death in 1891. The reporter, Josiah Cobbett, tells an interesting tale of following in the footsteps of Holmes, trying to get data that no one seems to want to give him. Following Cobbett around England as he meets Wiggins and some characters we won’t learn the importance of until much later is pleasant enough, but you can almost hear the fans in the cheap seats going “We want Sherlock! We want Sherlock!” Wait for it, though. This is one book where a little patience is amply rewarded . . . Cobbett finds the man who was butler to the Holmes household, and in Chapter Seven a very, very wonderful thing occurs: baby Mycroft makes the scene. (Hey, it’s Holmes’s childhood, you knew that was coming, didn’t you?)

Okay, you’re thinking, it’s just this fat little baby. How interesting is that?

One of the most wonderful things about this book (and there are many) is that it brings back a feeling of just how special both Mycroft and Sherlock are, from day one. These are not ordinary children who will grow up to be ordinary adults who just happened to be written about. These are legends in the making, being who are as astounding as children as they will be as adults. All new babies start ruling life at their homes from the day they’re born, but “Mycroft” (not his original name — how he comes by it is a treat in itself) takes command of the house in ways you never imagined. He’s the Mycroft we’ll eventually come to meet at 221B all right, but seeing him in his developmental stages is a whole lot of fun . . . I found myself laughing aloud at this wunderkind’s trail of havoc through the world of adults. Kids say the darnedest things, but think about what happens if that kid is Mycroft Holmes. It’s enjoyable enough to make you almost forget he’s got a little brother on the way.

And when that brother shows up . . . well, that’s another story. There’s some fun in Sherlock’s beginnings, too, but there are soon parts that bring tears to my eyes just to trying describe them. All the things you expect to show up in Sherlock’s origin are there: the violin, the chemicals, the reason to distrust women. But it’s all woven into a fabric of drama so intense that none of it feels contrived, or like it was put in there just because it had to be. You actually worry about this kid as the butler’s recollections unfold, and I found myself putting the book down on occasion and having to remember, “Oh, yeah, he’s going to make it — we’ve got the Canon, don’t we?”

I’m not going into the plot, so you can enjoy it for yourself. But I found this book delightful in a way I haven’t found a Holmes book for years, and it rings very true, almost qualifying to be called Sherlockian scholarship as much as pastiche. It’s available for a somewhat steep $24.95 (trade paperback) on amazon.com, but The Childhood of Sherlock Holmes: The Butler’s Tale by Mona Morstein is an excellent investment of your Sherlockian cash. (Small presses mean future rarities, I figure. Great to have, if by some folly it’s never reprinted, or great to have a first edition of if it does see wider distribution.) Get out and buy one now.

-- The Publisher, Editor-In-Chief, and Flagrant Book-Plugger