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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781400078226
ISBN number: 1400078229
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: May 09, 2006
Publishing house: Anchor
Release Date: May 09, 2006
Sale Popularity Level: 240037
Studio: Anchor
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Product Description:
It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn’t even know he was asking–about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind’s ability to know. A novel of exceptional grace and literary sensitivity, A Slight Trick of the Mind is a brilliant imagining of our greatest fictional detective and a stunning inquiry into the mysteries of human connection.
Amazon.com Review:
Long after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle allowed him to retire to Sussex to take up beekeeping, there seems to be no end of enthusiasm for imagined versions of the life of Sherlock Holmes. There was Michael Chabon's The Final Solution in which 'the old man,' an 89-year-old beekeeper in Sussex is undoubtedly Holmes. Laurie King, a fine mystery writer, has appropriated Holmes and created a romance between him and young Mary Russell which has lasted through several enjoyable books. And now, nonagenarian Holmes reappears, most appealingly, in Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind. He is frail and forgetful but still observant and capable of shining the bright light of his insight and brilliance on events both past and present.
Cullin has carefully woven three stories together and managed it so neatly that no threads show--worthy of Holmes himself. The very first is the story of Holmes's recent return from a trip to Japan, ostensibly in search of prickly ash, a bush that he believes contributes to healthy longevity, as does his beloved and trusted royal jelly. While there, he is met by his correspondent, Mr. Umezaki, who isn't as interested in prickly ash as in gleaning information from Holmes about his long-gone father. Supposedly, they met many years before, in London, and Holmes advised him not to return home. Of course, Holmes has no recollection of the meeting but finesses it nicely.
It is 1947 when they visit Hiroshima, post-atomic bomb, and Holmes marvels at what he sees. He compares it, most poignantly, to the loss of the queen in a hive, 'when no resources were available to raise a new one. Yet how could he explain the deeper illness of unexpressed desolation, that imprecise pall harbored en masse by ordinary Japanese?' That is what he tells Roger, the 14-year-old son of his housekeeper. Roger is the second thread of the novel. Holmes is introducing him to beekeeping and Roger proves an apt student. His hero-worship of Holmes and his need for a father form an integral part of Cullin's intention of 'humanizing' the great Sherlock Holmes.
The final thread is revealed in a journal that Holmes kept, in which he entered an encounter with a married woman, many years ago. He is infatuated with her, and hardly knows what to call it or what to make of his feelings. This is unfamiliar territory for the man who is rational above all else. The man we know at the end of the book makes the reader want another installment, showing a new Sherlock with a heart as well as a brain. --Valerie Ryan
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Rated by buyers 
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Those who begin this book hoping for another untold adventure of Sherlock Holmes may be puzzled or disappointed at first. But I hope they'll stay with it, because it's a deeply moving story, a meditation on age, memory, and identity. The three storylines interweave & fade into one another, just as Holmes' waning faculties drift & wander. His own awareness of his decline is heartbreaking, yet he handles it with grace & dignity. Whether his defenses against that decline demand too heavy a personal price is for the reader to decide.
Still, this isn't just a tale of old age & its inexorable erosion, however beautifully told -- it's an investigation into the mysteries that not even a mind as keen & brilliant as that of Sherlock Holmes can hope to solve. The mystery of meaning, the mystery of loneliness, and the final mystery of death -- these are the mysteries Holmes faces, only to find himself as baffled by their impenetrability as any of us. When you reach the final page, you'll be left with a feeling of thoughtful melancholy, as well as an urge to confront those mysteries yourself. A rich, memorable novel, most highly recommended!
Rated by buyers -
Mitch Cullin's "A Sligiht Trick of the Mind" is a mesmerizing, wonderfully written, inventive novel that I thoroughly enjoyed. This novel features Sherlock Holmes, but lest the reader be disappointed, it is not the Holmes of Sir Aruthur Conan Doyle. It is a much richer, older and emotional Holmes which is the central character of this story. Holmes is a 93 year old man living in post WWII England tending his bees. He is grappling with the continual loss of his physical abilities as well as his mental prowess. Several relationships are highlighted throughout the book which humanizes Holmes in a way that he hasn't been before. Particularly poignant is Holmes' relationship with the housekeepers young son Roger, who to Holmes' surprise elicits paternal feelings in himself. Cullin is able to weave an enchanting story about a well known character with a different but none the less profound impact on the reader. The writing is so well done, I was moved to tears, both by the sadness of the situations and the emotions that Cullin was able to evoke through his writing. Well Done!
Rated by buyers -
Best sherlock holmes story, after ACD's
I read and re-read the book, to understand the delicacies of the nature of elderly sherlock holmes, i am sure everybody has there own picture of sherlock holmes in there mind, but this one gets too close.
Rated by buyers 
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This book has good and bad qualities to it. I found it fascinating to read the rambling thoughts of the great detective. His mind is still keen sometimes. But, old age has taken it's toll on him.
There are a couple of storylines that intertwine within the book. The author jumps around frequently to different stories, and different time periods.
Each storyline is fairly good by itself, although I found the endings to be weak. As if Holmes just drifts off in his narration with little closure.
I suppose that is the way of the very old, but it's not a strong finish for the character we all adore.
Its worth reading, if you don't mind Holmes being weak and doddering.
Rated by buyers -
Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind defies expectation of any Sherlock Holmes related novel. As usual, when dealing with a "canon" of fiction, there tends to be some initial distaste at the thought of reading someone else's interpretation of a beloved character. However, Cullin has made Holmes a real person, frail, forgetful, at the end of his life, forced to deal with mortality not with reason, but with humanity. It is not a standard situation for the character and it can therefore be disregarded relatively easily if it doesn't suit the pallet of Holmes aficionados. I would like to say, however, that since Holmes has been more consistently misunderstood by the common reading public (at least as far as his "cultural representation" has been concerned ... only Jeremy Brett ever captured, for example, Holmes' innate alienness and his ability to annoy more than astound the average person), then I would say do not judge this book until you have read it.
Mitch Cullin has decided on a lateral approach to unveiling much of the story in A Slight Trick of the Mind, through a case journal, a recent though poorly remembered trip to post-war Japan, and Holmes eventual return to his beehives. Without spoiling the plot, all three deal with death and Holmes' ultimate emotional awakening to what mortality might mean. Without sounding maudlin, Holmes at the end of his life finally becomes a caring person. Not that he wasn't human before, but he had just not ever gotten around to thinking about the impact his scientific reason had on the everyday person.
Mitch Cullin pulls off quite a feet in giving us a believable post-Conan Doyle Holmes and also a very modern meditation on some more subtle themes that have not appeared too often in the classic "canon." There is some unavoidable crossing of modern fiction themes that seem a bit out of place with Holmes. Like his more famous work, Tideland, the cross-cutting of times, the lack of linear storyline, the internalization of Holmes (to know what he is thinking!) will strike a reader of the Doyle "canon" as jarring. Add to that, of course, the fact that there is no mystery, apart from the mystery of life itself. Most of what I just wrote is by way of warning to the mystery genre reader. It does not mean to say that this isn't an excellent novel, even an excellent Sherlock Holmes novel.
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