Review of SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE REDISCOVERED RAILWAY MYSTERIES AND OTHER STORIES by John Taylor, read by Benedict Cumberbatch

Today Alex from The Sleepless Reader is here to review a collection of short stories based on the original Sherlock tales. They're written by John Taylor and–most importantly–the audiobook is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch! Tell us everything we need to know, Alex.

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John Taylor started writing Sherlock Holmes short-stories for BBC Radio and they were later released in a CD as The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. The idea is that notes on old cases are found by Dr. Watson in a wooden chest in his bureau many years after they happened. The Rediscovered Railway Mysteries we never aired, but got an even better luck: their audiobook is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, who’s set to dethrone Jeremy Brett as the detective’s incarnation.

There are only four stories in this collection. In An Inscrutable Masquerade Sherlock is helping the police convict a man they’re convinced committed murder. In his basement he’s secretly and single-handedly inventing the science of ballistics and gives a warning to Watson: for our safety, and while I’m working on this case don’t leave 221B Baker Street don’t let anyone in. But how could Watson say no to an old friend that comes knocking?

In The Conundrum of Coach 13 an American business man asks Holmes to help him find 5 million in gold bullion that disappear from a highly secured train carriage. In The Trinity Vicarage Larceny the pair travels to the country to help a bishop discover who stole the church funds. A strange figure in a wide-brim hat has been seen around the village and becomes the first suspect. The 10:59 Assassin was my favorite story because Watson did a bit of forensics, Sherlock was able to show off his physical abilities, the end was satisfying and it had the ONLY female character in the four stories.

Writing-wise, Taylor does a good job of using Conan Doyle’s style. There were only a couple of times where I felt the canon wouldn’t have gone so far (e.g. a detailed description of a bullet wound to the head). I wish Dr. Watson hadn’t been so easily duped in the first story (one of my pet-hate tropes is the feeble-minded Watson) and that we’d seen more of the maniac and restless Holmes, but these were short stories of about 30 minutes each and it’s tough to develop both a well-built mystery and characterization.

Cumberbatch narration was great. Even if his American accent isn’t entirely convincing, he redeems himself in making Watson so thoughtful and likable and Sherlock sharp and self-assured. It was difficult to disassociate Cumberbatch from his character and I wonder how many people buy the audiobook just because he narrates it (guilty!). Someone should persuaded him to read the canon.

Discover Passages to Obscure Worlds with CITIES OF THE FANTASTIC by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters

Get ready to expand your comics repertoire with Alex from The Sleepless Reader! Alex lives in Switzerland and is here to tell us about a fascinating Franco-Belgian graphic novel series called Cities of the Fantastic. What makes this series a cult hit? Read on to find out.

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One of the best things of having lived in Brussels was the exposure to its vibrant comics scene. As a kid I devoured the most famous Belgian series such as Tintin, Lucky-Luck and the Smurfs, but now the world of the Franco-Belgian bande dessinée culture opened up to me.

In Brussels it’s impossible to escape the 9th art: there are dedicated comics book shops everywhere, the Trail of the city’s comics wall murals is one of its most popular tourist attractions. Belgium has more than 700 professional comics creators, making it the country with the most comics artists per km² and some of the best were even knighted!

Of all the new Belgian artists I got to know, my favourite is without a doubt François Schuiten. Together with French writer Benoît Peeters he created the Les Cités Obscures series, or Cities of the Fantastic. They started in the 80s and have reached cult status. Schuiten in particular is so admired in Belgium that he got to design his own metro station.

All these cities belong to a continent that exists in an anti-Earth, almost like a parallel universe. Each city is dominated by a particular aesthetic, for instance, Samaris is influenced by oriental architecture, Renaissance and the Baroque, Xhystos is connected to Art Nouveau and Urbicande to Art Deco and Bauhaus. Each aesthetic influences and is influenced by the city’s political structure and its inhabitants’ culture and way of thinking. This makes for really interesting story-telling and world-building, at least if you’re an art buff like me.

Visually, this series is exactly my cup of tea (I want ALL THE PRINTS). Schuiten was trained as an architect and it shows. The perspectives are larger-than-life but there’s a special attention to detail.

The stories, in the tradition of the Franco-Belgian comics, have a surrealist streak. Their meaning can be analysed and discussed to your heart’s content. For instance, in Fever in Urbicand a small, skeletal cube is offered to the city’s most famous “urbatech” and it slowly starts growing. Over the next few weeks it continues to expand and replicate, passing through all solid material, until eventually overtaken the entire city. In The Leaning Girl, a girl becomes victim to a strange phenomenon during a visit to a theme park: her body tilts 45 degrees, “as if gravity to which it is subject came from another universe”.

In between the main books, there are companions and spin-offs that Schuiten and Peeters developed to add to the world-building. My favourite: an illustrated tourist guide to the Cities.

Another interesting detail: travel between worlds is possible, through "gates" or “passages,” and Jules Verne and Claude Monet are known to have crossed them. One known passage is the Art Nouveau master-piece Maison Autrique, in Brussels. You can even read reports of crossings in websites like the Office to the Obscure Passages.

There are currently 12 volumes in Les Cités Obscures, but not all translated into English. This is a fascinating series that deserves to be widely known and read. I’m sure it’ll happen so, after all, according to the American website The Obscure Cities, The Leaning Girl was a hit at the San Diego Comic Con!