The Eccentric Painter (A Sherlock Holmes Uncovered Tale)

By: Steven Ehrman

Narrated by: John Patrick Conn

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are called in on the murder of a wealthy English country squire. The deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes are on full display as he flushes the killer from a group of suspects with perfect alibis.

This is a short story typical of the Holmes tales and is 10,000 words in length.

©2013 Steven Ehrman (P)2013 Steven Ehrman

Has promise, but ...

First of all, many listeners will find the American narrator's voice a complete deal-breaker; however, that wasn't a problem for me. I did notice at one point Holmes calling their young female client "My dear", something ACD's Holmes would never have done. The story itself was okay, though as others have mentioned, brief with a beginning and end, but no real middle section. So, I'm open to reading another, but not in any hurry at all about doing so.

A Fine Sherlock Holmes Pastiche

I was pleased by how well & how often this story reminded me of Arthur Conan Doyle's style of writing his Sherlock Holmes stories.

Serviceable, nothing more. Meh.

This short pastiche offers a perfectly serviceable mystery and a very familiar setting. The descriptions (of the characters, of 221B Baker Street, of Holmes's method) are all taken straight from the pages of Arthur Conan Doyle. I couldn't help but think there was little "value added," however; the work is so brief that the original characters get little development, and we are treated to no deeper insights or glimpses into the Holmes-Watson dynamic, which feels very static.

It's solid enough, but I was left wanting much more. To my mind, the middling-sort of pastiches are mimicry, but the best make contributions to the Holmesian conversation. This never rose above the former.

The narrator did little to evoke the "Victorian British" sound or to distinguish the voices of different characters from one another.