Sherlock Holmes and The American Angels

This is the ninth and final Sherlockian novel by Barrie Roberts. That is, of course, unless my friend Andrew Gulli has another tucked away somewhere. Nine novels and eight short stories is a regretably small output from so talented a writer as Mr. Roberts. In my opinion, he had a knack for capturing Dr. Watson in his tales in very much the same way as he appears in the Canon. Others will surely disagree, but most will concede Roberts had the gift of storytelling and an ear for Sherlockian dialogue. ‘Angels’ is an odd tale, as are most of Barrie’s novels. Holmes notes a set of coded messages in the newspapers, solves the code and learns of a scheduled meeting between the two carrying on the conversation. He and Watson decide to observe this meeting and, instead, find a dead body. Shortly, another corpse is found and it appears that both the correspondants have been killed by yet another party. As things progress, Holmes acquires a client, the venue moves to far rural Scotland and the politics of the situation become very complicated.The ‘Angels’ of the title are found to be gold coins, minted by Bonnie Prince Charlie and the passle of rogues chasing them includes Americans, Scotsmen and Irish, all muddled up together. A murder method unique to the Inuit is put to use and stones placed by the aboriginal inhabitants of Western Europe provide a solution to a mystery. Holmes and Watson alternately chase and are chased, the list of suspects grows and shrinks with surprising regularity and the police provide good comic relief.The resolution of the mystery is typical of Roberts. Holmes clears all the mystery away and everything is explained, in some detail. This is, to my mind, the weak point in Roberts’ writing, no loose ends are left to dangle and everthing is explained. I have never found this to be true in real life and I suspect it in a mystery. It is permissable, perhaps, in shorter stories, but novel-length tales should have some room for the unexpected and the unexplained. Such things occur daily, to all of us.Reviewed by: Philip K. Jones; March, 2010.