The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes - Softcover

Pirie, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312990987 ISBN 13: 9780312990985

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2003

Synopsis

David Pirie gained rave reviews for his screenplay depicting the "real" Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell, in the two part, Edgar-nominated TV series "Murder Rooms." Treading that same critically acclaimed ground, The Patient's Eyes is the first in a stand-alone cycle of novels written from Doyle's point of view that include a whole new perspective on the adventures of Bell and Doyle and the genesis of the best-known detective in all of mystery literature...

The Patient's Eyes
When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist, who vanishes as soon as he is followed. But this enigma is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr. Bell. But Dr. Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of the solitary cyclist-and the patient's eyes...

About this title

About the Author

David Pirie was a journalist and film critic before he became a screenwriter and, most recently, a novelist. He lives in Somerset, UK. The Patient's Eyes is his first novel.

From the Back Cover

"Truly frightening."--Time Out

David Pirie gained rave reviews for his screenplay depicting the "real" Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell, in the two part, Edgar-nominated TV series "Murder Rooms." Treading that same critically acclaimed ground, The Patient's Eyes is the first in a stand-alone cycle of novels written from Doyle's point of view that include a whole new perspective on the adventures of Bell and Doyle and the genesis of the best-known detective in all of mystery literature...

The Patient's Eyes
When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist, who vanishes as soon as he is followed. But this enigma is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr. Bell. But Dr. Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of the solitary cyclist-and the patient's eyes...

"A witty elegant conceit...enjoyable...[with] a surprising twist, that ranks with the best of the Doyle canon." --The Times Literary Supplement

"An intellectual treat and a downright guilty pleasure."-The Washington Post Book World

From the Inside Flap

Critical Acclaim for David Pirie's The Patient's Eyes

"It is the combination of style and scholarship...that gives this atmospheric yarn the heightened thrill of intellectual challenge."--The New York Times Book Review

"A satisfying Borgesian mix of library riddle, fact, and conjecture, which sidesteps the well-trodden route as a way of investigating Doyle's troubled beginnings."-The Guardian

"A witty elegant conceit...charged with full-blooded melodrama. Pirie creates a convincing Victorian world of eerie moors and fearless detectives, impenetrable ciphers, and strange hooded assassins. Even the novel's villain, the monstrous naturalist Charles Blythe, is a quintessentially Doylean creation.... This is a pacey, enjoyable yarn, with a surprising twist, that ranks with the best of the Doyle canon."-The Times Literary Supplement

"Truly frightening...David Pirie is delving into the `real' origins of the casebooks."-Time Out

"Read of the week. David Pirie has imagined a much closer association (between Doyle and Bell) of a Holmes-and-Watson kind though scarred with the unquestionably real tragedy of Doyle's alcoholic father and with imaginary melodramas... The idea is a better one than the innumerable...attempts by authors to capitalize on the Holmes name by putting him in concoctions of their own...If David Pirie ever writes a detective of his own I want to read him."-The Scotsman

"Not a novelization but a well-crafted and absorbing novel satisfying in its own right...far more entertaining and engrossing than so many Holmes pastiches that tread familiar paths...a recommended read."-Sherlock Holmes Magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312990987
• ISBN 13: 9780312990985
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 304