Audiobook: The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes by Ted Riccardi

I listened to this book via the Audible app

This title may seem out of place in a blog that has so far been dedicated to a) print books, and b) more literary works. However...

A) Being a farmer I spent long hours during the summer months in a tractor cab, audiobooks help while away those hours.

B) It is a pet peeve of mine that literature is arbitrarily split into works that are worth while and worthy, and those which are merely the written form of muzak, serving only to fill the silent lift of our brains.

There are many novels which straddle this boundary, and even those that are firmly planted in one camp or the other can be judged together, if not necessarily by the same criteria. By which I mean a book that aims to spin an intriguing mystery should not be judged a failure because it fails to comment on the deeper aspects of the human condition. Likewise a book which in entirely internal monologue should not be deemed a failure for its lack of fast-paced-action.

And so, there will be more genre fiction to come in this blog, and specifically more Sherlock Holmes, of which I am a great fan (and am also writing some Holmes related stuff myself - more on which at some point).

Conan Doyle once famously described Sherlock
Holmes as like 'fish paste'

There are two approaches, generally speaking, to writing new Sherlock Holmes stories. One can either use the characters in a new way to write something very different to the original works - or one can go full pastiche, and pretend to be Conan Doyle in 1915 writing something as indistinguishable as possible from the original. The Oriental Casebook falls very much in the latter camp. 

Conan Doyle set up the Holmes stories beautifully for pastiche. The characters of Holmes and Watson are pretty much unchanged from one adventure to the other, their is rarely an emotional arc, and if there is, it is resolved by the end of the adventure, with everyone ending up pretty much where there started. It is true Watson married (at least once, possibly twice), and he moved in and out of 221b Baker Street at various points, but he never changed as a person, and Holmes is always Holmes. This stability allows new writers to drop stories between the originals and so long as they follow Conan Doyle's lead and leave everything how they found it, they fit seamlessly.

Jeremy Brett unquestionably gives the best 
on-screen portrayal of Holmes, and to claim
differently is fighting talk

The other element of the original canon which invites pastiche is the tantalising references Conan Doyle dropped to other adventures. "Ah yes," says Holmes, "there are parallels with the Unfortunate Case of the Limping Pig" (ok that example is made up). And of course there is the Great Hiatus - the three in-universe years after Conan Doyle killed Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls and before he caved to public pressure and brought him back. Holmes gives only vague hints at what he got up to at this point, such as using the alias Sigerson, and the fact he visited Khartoum, Mecca and Tibet, where he met the head Lama. 

It is during Holmes 'lost years' that Ted Riccardi set The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. Which brings us, eventually, to the point of this post - a review of the audio book.  

There are two elements to audiobooks - the writing and the performance. I find some of my favourite books unlistenable to, due to an annoying voice or an inability to portray the necessary accents. The Oriental Casebook is narrated by Simon Prebble, an English born actor who has done a lot of voice work, including radio, TV continuity and, recently, a shed load of audio books. Prebble's experience shows, and along with the warm cadence of his voice, and his ability to give a received pronunciation which is still relaxed and friendly, leads to an excellent performance, almost reaching the level of Stephen Fry on his reading of the original works.

Narrator Simon Prebble is the
best part of the audiobook

So to the actual writing. Firstly it is obvious the author, Ted Riccardi is very knowledgeable about both Sherlock Holmes and the orient. The characters are true to their original iterations, Riccardi gets the voices almost spot on, with only a couple of Americanisms creeping in. The settings too, mostly northern India and the Himalayan kingdoms of Nepal and Tibet, are very convincingly sketched, with lots of little details.

This is not too surprising when we learn that Riccardi was a Professor Emeritus at Columbia University and chairman of the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures. He spent many years living in Nepal at various points of his life and wrote numerous books on the history and languages of the region. His academic work was prodigious and varied, he took part in archaeological digs and translated many legends and literary works. In latter years his work turned to a more meta direction, looking at how Orientalism is portrayed and studied in the west. Upon retiring he wrote two collections of Sherlock Holmes stories, The Oriental Casebook is the first. 

However, for all Riccardi's strengths, there are numerous weaknesses with the pastiche. Conan Doyle hit upon a formula for the stories, that worked so well it is still adopted in a large proportion of mystery fiction to this day. First there is a seemingly impossible occurrence, or a seemingly simple occurrence but with one fact that does not fit. Holmes then goes about his investigations, giving us little titbits of information that only confuse matters, before finally pointing the metaphorical finger of accusation and explaining what happened and how each of the clues pointed in this direction. Riccardi doesn't really follow this formula, and it is to the detriment of the stories.

Ted Riccardi is one of many writers
to add stories to the wider Holmes
canon.

Conan Doyle was found of a framing device, many of the original stories allow him to indulge in his preferred romantic tale, wrapping it in a Holmesian mystery. Riccardi takes framing to absurd levels however. The whole collection is framed by an Introduction and Afterword. In the former Watson unnecessarily recounts in some detail the events that bookended Holmes disappearance from public view, most readers/listeners will be Holmes fans already and well acquainted with the Final Problem and the Empty House. Even if we were weren't, it has very little bearing on these stories. The Afterword reflects Riccardi's studies of Orientalism and questions the crimes of imperialism, I didn't find this moralising out of place. Indeed it is hard for later writers to both maintain believable perspectives of Victorian protagonists, while avoiding crass and outdated attitudes in the work as whole, Riccardi manages this.

Riccardi then has each story start with Watson meeting Holmes in London, long after the adventure we are about to hear. After a while Holmes starts recounting the adventure (which of course Watson missed as he was at home pining for his friend, who he believed was dead). But first Holmes recounts the events in the east which lead up to the action. This frame within and frame within a frame has two big downsides. Firstly we are usually a good way through the story before anything pertinent happens. Secondly, because the story is being told by Watson, who was told it by Holmes, and quite often features sections told to Holmes by a third party, the narration swaps around jarringly between first and third person, and far too much distance is added between the action and the reader.

As a side note, seeing how often food is referenced in the original stories, I would have liked to see what Holmes thought of the local cuisine. I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a criticism, but it does feel like a missed opportunity.

Bollywood has made it's own adaptation - 
Srikakulam Sherlock Holmes released in 2024

I believe one of the main attractions to Holmesian pastiches is that they are a kind of intellectual puzzle. The reader is given most of the clues needed to solve the mystery and tries to work out what is going on, then there is a sense of satisfaction and completion when Holmes explains it all. Riccardi misses the mark here. Few of the stories involve an initial seemingly unsolvable riddle, indeed there is very little in the way of sleuthing at all. Holmes only indulges us with his 'trick' once, reading a person's intimate details from their appearance, and Riccardi then makes the cardinal error of not explaining his workings. Indeed most of the stories are more pulp adventure than mystery. While Conan Doyle did write a couple of stories in this vein, Holmes is best known for solving mysteries, and this is what we want to see him do. Which brings me to my next point about pastiches...

The writer of a pastiche must strike a balance between originality and authenticity. If they stick purely to aspects which have been explored fully in the original writings, then what we have is a reheating of yesterdays dinner, which is always going to be disappointing. But if they veer too far in the other direction and add too many elements not featured in the original tales, then the story is not really what the readers are expecting, and seems unbelievable when viewed through the logic of the originals. Riccardi defiantly leans into the 'too original' here, especially with the last story which treads into territory more fitted to Doc Savage than Sherlock Holmes. To make matters worse, the pulp plots are not particularly well thought out and lack coherence, at the end of most stories I was left wondering just why certain plot points ever came about, and why Holmes did what he did.

Overall The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes does not really hit the mark. But while the plots are uninspiring, the format too different to Conan Doyle's and the jumbled point of views confusing, Riccardi does get the characters right, and as such this collection has the reassuring quality of hanging out with old friends. The plots are just interesting enough to keep you listening, and so while I was at no point wowed by the book, I was found it a vaguely pleasant experience.

Overall I would give it: ★★☆☆☆