Regular marked price: $14.95Discount Price: $10.17
Cost Savings: $4.78 (32%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN num: 9781582343280
ISBN number: 1582343284
Label: Bloomsbury USA
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 280
Printing Date: January 09, 2003
Publishing house: Bloomsbury USA
Sale Popularity Level: 225670
Studio: Bloomsbury USA
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A new Sherlock Holmes mystery worthy of the master Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.
In 1891, the British public was horrified to learn that Sherlock Holmes had perished in a deadly struggle with the archcriminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Then, to its amazement, he reappeared two years later, informing a stunned Watson, 'I traveled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa.'
Nothing has been known of those missing years until Jamyang Norbu's discovery, in a rusting tin dispatch box in Darjeeling, of a flat packet carefully wrapped in waxed paper and neatly tied with stout twine. When opened the packet revealed Huree Chunder Mookerjee's (Kipling's Bengali spy and scholar) own account of his travels with Sherlock Holmes.
Now for the very first time, we learn of Holmes's brush with the Great Game and the world of Kim. We follow him north across the hot and duty plains of India to Simla, summer capital of the British Raj, and over the high passes to the vast emptiness of the Tibetan plateau. In the medieval splendor that is Lhasa, intrigue and grey treachery stalk the shadows, and Sherlock Holmes confronts his greatest challenge.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
The conceit of the novel is great - SH's missing years, Kipling's Huree Babu as narrator. But the novel fails on multiple levels. Although it puts SH in new situations, it gives us no new insight on or vision of him. In places reading _Mandala_ felt like reading a Holmes story written by Doyle, which the author may take as a compliment, but which I don't mean as one as here it felt merely as hero-worship. Not that I was looking for SH to be taken down a peg or two, but I was hoping to get out of what can sometimes feel like vise-grip of SH's mind in the Doyle stories. Norbu had the oppourtunity to do this, but too great a fan of Doyle/SH, he simply followed the formula: a perplexing case, SH's focused mind, mysterious orders issued by SH to trap the criminal, the catch, and then a full explanation to a bewildered Watson/Huree. There is nothing we/Watson/Huree can do but gape in admiration. The same goes for the Tibeten Lamas. In the wierdly Haggard-esque scenes in the Ice Caves, I kept expecting one of the Lamas to _do_ something. But evidently only SH has all the answers and can save the day. If this were done tongue-in-cheek (say, alluding ironically to Superman, etc), Norbu might have been able to pull it off (and write an interesting scene). But as it is, he _does_ seem to believe that all the answers lie with SH. This works in Doyle's stories (although even he tired of it), but more than a 100 yrs later, it feels tedious.
Rated by buyers 
-
Sure this is pastiche But it is crafted with care. The author shows great care in trying to give a good 19th century feel to his story. The fact that he brings Tibetan philosophy into his plot line should not be that much of a shock. I grew up on Sax Rohmer[Arthur Henry Ward], T. Lobsang Rampa[Cyril Hoskins], & Joan Grant "far memory" books. I love the Doyle canon but even Doyle was fallible. I enjoyed this book very much, in fact I hope the author writes another. FYI there is a glossary at the back of the book.
Rated by buyers -
Despite the shallow reviews you may have read, this is an excellent book, not only for Holmes fans but for people interested in colonialism and Tibet's struggle against China and India's struggle for freedom for England. Yes, this book is more about the issues of Tibet's struggle to find its way through the minefields of British and Chinese imperialism than it is about ratiocination. The narrator alone is worth the money and time, and with some magical realism thrown in for a truly Tibetan reading experience, this amounts to a book many will find very interesting. Not everyone, obviously, but perhaps you? I loved it!
Rated by buyers -
This terrible book should be anathema to any true reader of the Holmes Canon. SH once said "no ghosts need apply" when very first confronted with the Baskerville legend but the author fills the book with mystical nonsense -- duels with energy bolts! - levitation! - alternate lives! -Moriarty rising from Reichenbach falls (the shock of iminent death reminded him he was a powerful llama). Very silly stuff -- but in the context of a Holmes pastiche it's sacrilegious.
My only regret is that true readers cannot mount a class action suit against this twisted mockery of Holmes' logic-based adventures. Give this book to your enemies.
Rated by buyers -
So long as you don't allow yourself to be tricked into buying the same book twice (yes, Virginia, Sherlock Holmes: The Missing Years is the same book!!) you are in for a treat. This author captures Holmes as Holmes would have been--still the world's greatest detective. Disguise, aliases, locations, all these meant nothing to the man behind the magnifying glass. The Fu Manchu like attack with the leech in the lamp--brilliant! I can't say enough good things about this book except Jamyang Norbu, don't make it your last! Definately five Sherlock stars! Quoth the Raven...
Find other books like this one:
