The Scottish Ploy: A Mycroft Holmes Novel (Mycroft Holmes Novels) - Hardcover

Fawcett, Quinn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312872828 ISBN 13: 9780312872823

Publisher: Forge, 2000

Synopsis

When an actor resembling him mysteriously disappears, Mycroft Holmes must step into his shoes as Macbeth, while his allies search London for the missing man and battle the enigmatic Brotherhood.

About this title

About the Author:

A Knight Templar of the Scottish Order, QUINN FAWCETT has been interested in all things Holmesian since he can remember, and considers it a rare honor to write with Dame Jean Conan Doyle’s permission. Against the Brotherhood and Embassy Row were his first two novels. Fawcett currently lives in the Caribbean.

From Publishers Weekly:

International intrigue, phrenology and the theater (the title puns on the historical euphemism for Macbeth, i.e. "the Scottish play") concern Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older, smarter brother, in his fourth adventure in Fawcett's popular series (The Flying Scotsman, etc.). Once again Patterson Guthrie, Mycroft's secretary, serves as the Watson-like narrator. Unfortunately, for all the excitementDa threat to the government, marriage difficulties among the aristocracy, poisonings, disappearances and chasesDmany details jar. In a key plot development the "portly" Mycroft engages his friend, actor Edmund Sutton, who's playing the lead in Macbeth, to be his body double, yet Sutton is described as "lanky." There are more gunshots in central London than you might expect in Victorian times, while the official force oddly keeps a low profile. Dr. Watson can dress the wound of an admiralty runner shot on Mycroft's doorstep, then commit the unlucky man to the hospital with no fuss from the public or the police. Any mystery requires the reader to suspend disbelief to some extent, but this one at times requires a suspension apparatus that could support London Bridge. You can't help wondering why Mycroft didn't do the really smart thing and let Sherlock handle the case and Watson write about it. (Dec. 6) Forecast: Holmes purists have tended to look down their noses at this series, authorized by the late dame Jean Conan Doyle, but fans should welcome this as enthusiastically as Fawcett's previous Mycroft Holmes titles.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Forge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312872828
• ISBN 13: 9780312872823
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352