The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Devil and the Four

Holmes is consulted by wealthy John Hardy. His wife, Marguerite, has received a letter that has frightened her out of her mind. Written in her native French, it promises doom. It states, “Four for the Devil.” It then mentions four people and promises that she will be number three!Frightened, she has fled London for Paris, stating she wants to hire a certain Mrs. Rose Grace, a consulting detective! The husband states that his wife’s past is a mystery to him, but they have a happy thirteen-year marriage.Meanwhile, the first name on the list is found dead under suspicious circumstances…Thus begins a fast-paced story of secrets, murder, theft and… Satanism!In Siciliano’s world of 221B, Holmes is still the logical detective, but he has a relationship of a sort with a woman named Violet Wheelwright from one of his cases. No problem with that, even ACD had shown he had feelings for Irene Adler. In these adventures, Holmes is seconded by his cousin, Doctor Henry Vernier instead of Watson. No problem, a lot of tales out there are told by someone other than Watson.I have but one problem with all of Siciliano’s Holmes stories. Watson is largely written out of the adventures and is treated like a bumbling buffoon. Dr. Vernier and Holmes go out of their way to let clients know that Watson will not be on the case. To have Watson out of the case is one thing; to have him and his adventures dismissed as the lies of an incompetent is blasphemous.Setting aside the treatment of Watson, the story itself is beautifully written. It’s a great mystery and the logic followed in bringing it to a successful conclusion are superb! The interaction of the characters and the pacing make this story hard to put down! I thoroughly enjoyed it!I give this book four stars. The one-star ding is for the shameful treatment of Watson.Quoth the Raven…

It was a decent mystery. Not as complicated as some of the past stories, but still entertaining. I liked the further development of the main characters.

This was an excellent Sherlock Holmes story. But be aware, this is not a Dr. Watson story. This is part of a series of stories with Sherlock's cousin Henry Vernier and his wife Michelle. But it is very well written, as are all in this series by Sam Siciliano.

Awful beyond my powers of description... 350 pages of what is essentially entirely padding. The characters never eat a meal without the reader being subjected to page after page of descriptions of what they ate and how they ate it. The characters spend most of their time wandering apparently aimlessly through Paris, with detailed and insufferably irrelevant descriptions of what they see. Holmes is supposed to be protecting a wealthy woman who has received a threat of violence, apparently based on some incident in her (rather shady) early life, but he spends almost all his time mooning like a lovesick teenager about a woman (named Violet of course) that he met in an earlier investigation. Holmes' sidekick is not Watson, but a distant relative named Vernier, who is supposed also to be a doctor, but who so frequently gets the vapors and has fainting spells, that I wondered if he were not a woman in disguise. Vernier is married to an Amazonian female who is also a doctor, and when this female arrives in Paris and takes over the narrative we get roughly 100 pages of vacuous girl-talk between the three main female characters, none of it advancing the thin plot by even a millimeter.Holmes fails utterly to protect his client... in fact the entire adventure is a complete and total disaster for all the involved characters, a disaster which leaves Holmes profoundly shaken and dead-set on retiring at once. The novel itself is a complete and total disaster, which will leave the reader vowing to avoid anything written by "Sam Siciliano" (whoever that is) at any time in the future.

Awesome

Having been a Sherlock Homes fan for many years, I enjoy trying new authors and their attempts at portraying the world's greatest detective. In “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Devil and the Four,” Sam Siciliano has offered an interesting story with a somewhat unique setting for Holmes – Paris. Holmes is consulted by wealthy John Hardy. His wife, Marguerite, has received a letter that has frightened her out of her mind. Written in her native French, it promises doom, as it states, “Four for the Devil.” This is part of a series of stories with Sherlock's cousin Henry Vernier (rather than good old Watson) and his wife Michelle. Although I did find it a little predictable, it was still an enjoyable read. As with many of Holmes' cases, all is not what it seems to be.If you are a Holmes fan, then do give “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Devil and the Four” a try. The pastiche is generally well written, although it does feel padded in spots and sadly is a little too predictable. I would have enjoyed it more with additional plot development – however less unnecessary padding. Still, I will certainly try another of his stories; I have certainly read a lot worse in the Wide World of Holmes Pastiches.

I agree with Rory Coker. I've read many Sherlock Holmes pastiches. This is one of the worst. A poor, outlandish plot and maybe one hundred pages too many. As Mr Coker suggests, there is way too much padding. Enough about every meal and every bottle of wine. I miss Watson. Henry Vernier is no substitute. He's more of a fool, who only wants to describe his beautiful wife. She doesn't add much to the story, either. The ending was totally unnecessary and contrived. I've read others by Sam Siciliano that were OK. However, I don't recommend this one.

Great sherlock holmes mystery.