May 05, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Sherlock sleuths again

by Don Kazak

The bar is set high whenever a writer uses Sherlock Holmes in a novel.

Lora Roberts clears that bar with ease.

The Palo Alto mystery writer is best known for her serious of Liz Sullivan mysteries, set in and around Palo Alto, and two related Bridget Montrose mysteries. This time Roberts travels across the pond and back 100 years to 1903 rural England.

There, a young widowed housekeeper gets snared up in a series of confounding events beyond her control but not beyond her powers to observe. This time, though, the detective's detective is available for assistance, although it's an even bet as to who does more to solve the case.

There is a whole sub-genre of modern-day Sherlock Holmes mysteries. But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was so good, so meticulous and measured, that woe to the writer who fumbles with the formula or tarts it up too much.

Roberts has the cadence and feel down cold. Sir Arthur would be beaming.

As a child, Roberts said she used to sit under the covers and read the Holmes mysteries with a flashlight. She admitted to some trepidation in completing a project first conceived 15 years ago -- but all seems to be well among the Conan Doyle loyalists.

In "The Affair of the Incognito Tenant," the housekeeper, Mrs. Dodson, is presiding over a rural estate in lieu of the deceased owner. A tall, pipe-smoking, eccentric tenant leases the estate for six months. But Mr. Sigerson, for all of his odd habits, is really Holmes on the run from the arch-fiend Col. Sebastian Morgan.

There is a priceless jewel possibly hidden at the estate, and soon, the bodies start falling.

An incompetent justice of the peace, who casts a leering eye on the comely heroine, becomes the foil for the real work by Mr. Sigerson and Mrs. Dodson. A clergyman who is not as pure as his sermons lends a complicating flavor to the broth.

And love is in the air, too.

Comic relief is provided by the stout cook, Mrs. Clithoe, who is afflicted by occasional "Spasms."

This is fun stuff, written as properly as if had been written 100 years ago. The people have manners and courtesy, even when they are being wickedly mean -- in a proper way -- to each other.

Roberts' Holmes now joins a distinguished list. Among the notable writers who have penned Holmes' mysteries are Mark Twain, Bret Harte, O. Henry, and -- in more contemporary versions -- Anne Perry and Laurie King, among others.

It's not bad company.

And about that budding, very proper romance between Mr. Sigerson and Mrs. Dodson: Surely the famous detective who admits to "not being a domestic man" will return again from London to that rural estate presided over by Mrs. Dodson on some future occasion.

If so, more bodies will continue to fall, delightfully so for the rest of us . Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com

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