JasonKoivu

Highly enjoyable! The Hound of the Baskervilles leans more towards horror than the usual Sherlock crime-solving mystery, but Arthur Conan Doyle worked his hero into this genre with the easy of slipping on a finger-print hiding glove.

Since private investigator Sherlock Holmes' office is in town, taking us readers out of London and into the country can be tricky if it's not to seem forced. To avoid that, Conan Doyle has Holmes send his friend and volunteer assistant Watson out to check on this silly nonsense of a family curse. This is a brilliant move on the writer's part, as it allows us to get a solid dose of fright alongside Watson, who is a good deal more superstitious and way more prone to believe in boogiemen than Holmes. Once Holmes is on the scene we all stare abashedly at our shoes as he systemically unveils the mundane truth.

Admittedly, I read The Hound... again because of a new interest in Sherlock Holmes after the latest movies and tv shows came out. I feel shame. But hey, it got me reading Arthur Conan Doyle's work once more, so that's what's important, right? Goddamn, that show is good...

This reading time around, what struck me the most was the humor. I'd forgotten about the author's lighter side. Surprisingly, the horror aspect still affected me on at least some level, which is impressive considering I've read this before when I was a kid and also because I don't scare easy now that I'm an all growed up big boy!