A Slight Trick of the Mind

It's okay. Because Holmes is so old, the book explores his fading memory, and gives us a sense of his disorientation, by jumping around in time to three different storylines. One is Holmes in the present at his bee farm in Sussex, another is Holmes in the recent past on a visit to a correspondent in post-WWII Japan, and finally Holmes in the distant past during a case involving a woman named Mrs. Keller. It's an interesting premise, but I was frequently annoyed by the literary device of showing a scene, then coming back to it later, repeating the scene almost verbatim with only a slight change of perspective to give it more meaning. Other things annoyed me, such as the lack of Watson, who is only mentioned now and then, and his death is not even given its own space, but combined with that of Mrs. Hudson. I don't like the idea that Holmes is so obsessed with royal jelly, prickly pears, and other methods of prolonging his life, either, because it seems pathetic. Also, Holmes reflecting on the changing world and the futility of war could have been done in the wake of WWI, instead of extending him out to WWII. To me, it seemed unnecessary to add the atomic age to this story. Holmes serves as a father figure to two different characters, and it's a little strange for the book to claim that it's surprising for Holmes to make friends with a boy. Holmes always got along with kids, whether it was the Baker Street Irregulars or other random kids he employed like Cartwright in "Hound of the Baskervilles" or even the black girl in "The Yellow Face" that he held laughingly. The book is not badly written, but I got bored and frustrated sometimes with the plot going too slow.