The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Read for: RIP V Challenge, Our Mutual Read Challenge

Despite never being particularly interested in the tales of Sherlock Holmes, I found myself gripped by the latest television adaptation of the famous sleuth's adventures. The BBC dramatisation was modern and inventive and persuaded me to try taste the source.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is perhaps the best known of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective's cases. However, what I did not expect was that despite being Sherlock Holmes' case, this particular novel focuses far more on his loyal assistant and narrator, Dr John Watson.

Based on the legend of a ghost dog from my neck of the woods, the Hound of the Baskervilles is the tale of Sir Charles Baskerville who is found dead of a heartattack in the grounds of his home in the centre of Dartmoor. Fearing for the life of Sir Charles' successor, Henry, a family friend Dr Mortimer contacts Sherlock Holmes about the curse of the Baskervilles and invites him to investigate the mysterious death. While Holmes remains in London, Watson accompanies Henry to Dartmoor and thus the mystery unravels.

The plot is a classic, elements of which will be very familar to readers of more modern mysteries. It is the characters however that make Conan Doyle's work so entertaining. Watson is engaging and likeable, his intelligent everyman the perfect foil for Holmes' astonishing yet somewhat egotistical genius.

According to all-knowing Wikipedia, there have been 24 film adaptations of Hound of the Baskervilles prior to 2006, which goes to show the durability of Conan Doyle's work. I thoroughly enjoyed my first Sherlock novel and will seriously consider another!