The Baskerville Legacy
When a young journalist, Bertram Fletcher Robinson, meets his writer hero Arthur Conan Doyle on a troop ship coming back from South Africa, he is delighted – especially when the creator of Sherlock Holmes suggests they collaborate on a ‘real creeper’ of a story.
A research trip to deepest Dartmoor cements their friendship as they start work on what will become one of the world’s most famous tales, The Hound of the Baskervilles. But the experience will prove traumatic for both of them, and when the result of their labours – Sherlock’s comeback vehicle – is finally published, it will be credited to one author alone.
Based on real events, THE BASKERVILLE LEGACY is a creeper in its own right: a thrilling exploration of friendship and rivalry, love and lust, ambition and the limits of talent. It takes us from the clattering heart of Edwardian London to the eerie stillness of ancient West Country moorland, where a treacherous mire might swallow a man in seconds...
A research trip to deepest Dartmoor cements their friendship as they start work on what will become one of the world’s most famous tales, The Hound of the Baskervilles. But the experience will prove traumatic for both of them, and when the result of their labours – Sherlock’s comeback vehicle – is finally published, it will be credited to one author alone.
Based on real events, THE BASKERVILLE LEGACY is a creeper in its own right: a thrilling exploration of friendship and rivalry, love and lust, ambition and the limits of talent. It takes us from the clattering heart of Edwardian London to the eerie stillness of ancient West Country moorland, where a treacherous mire might swallow a man in seconds...
Reviews
A period-perfect exploration of ambition and resentment, ideal for a misty autumn night by the fireside
O'Connell infuses real events and people with fiction to make this clever, atmospheric and elegant chiller.
4/5 stars... A thrilling novella... Doyle himself becomes not a villain but a dark character bedevilled by a complex private life and his mania for spiritualism... A rip-roaring addition to the extended library of all things Holmes."<br />
Engrossing... an eerie, pitch-perfect gothic tale, but it is also more than just a piece of literary archeology, probing questions of authorial ownership and fate and language in an atmospheric tour de force.
