Rach's Reading Club

Review: THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEVIL'S FOOT.
Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Characters 1601
Release 1910


Back in January, after spending December heavily into Golden Age Mystery and modern versions of same, due to discovering the extensive prolific (sometimes two to three newly published per week!) modern "SHERLOCK HOLMES" series of British author/Japanese Temple resident Ben Stevens, I've become deeply invested in devouring anything and everything Sherlock Holmes, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original canon right through all the pastiches and different new versions of the 20th and 21st centuries. (I'm speaking solely of books and short stories; films and TV Series I don't include, though due to childhood exposure, I do always visualize The Great Detective as the portrayal by Basil Rathbone in 1939's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (with Nigel Bruce portraying the bumbling but devoted friend and well-intentioned Dr. John Watson).

This time around I find I am reading for Character as much as for adventurous plot (although I definitely do enjoy those). Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Red Circle" seems to me to be strongly character-driven: the seemingly supernatural crimes are just the backdrop for looking, first, at four members of what is purported to be a close-knit family, and the bizarre fates which befall them; then, as Holmes delves into the case and another death occurs, also seemingly inexplicably, the question of character really becomes foremost, enwrapped with a remarkably clever set of plot twists. I think what has impressed me the most is the outworking of the character and motives of the second culprit (the first culprit's motive was not so surprising), and then Sherlock Holmes' unexpected, but gratifying, response to the uncovering of Motive and the unmasking of the culprit.

Like "Hound of the Baskervilles," "The Adventure of the Red Circle" has become one of my top favorites of Conan Doyle's original canon, and deserves a close and clever reread soonest.

Correction Note:
I had just read "The Adventure of the Red Circle" yesterday; but this review is for "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot," which references British colonialism and global exploration.