Michael Dirda, On Conan Doyle (2012)

This might be a controversial thing to say about a book that won a coveted ‘Edgar’ award from the Mystery Writers of America, but On Conan Doyle, by Michael Dirda, the long-time book critic for the Washington Post, is a bit of a mixed bag. Its strengths include its opening section, when Dirda memorably recreates the first time he ever read Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles as a child and there is much in this vein in the rest of the book about that most unfashionable of subjects, the love of reading. As a celebration of that love, On Conan Doyle works, and it’s just as valuable in encouraging its reader to look beyond the Holmes stories and novels and take in the rest of Doyle’s broad oeuvre. This is important not only because Dirda writes convincingly of the strengths of Doyle’s short fiction, his historical novels, his memoir, and so on, but also because Doyle himself felt (correctly) that Holmes’ success overshadowed his other achievements as an author. Where Dirda stumbles is when he discusses at (too) great length his participation in the Baker Street Irregulars, an illustrious company of Holmes fans to which he is obviously very honored to belong, as he should be. The problem is that Dirda’s pride at being a member of the club is not infectious and his lengthy descriptions of the group’s social events are self-indulgent and tedious, as is his reproduction of some of the (not very funny) writing he’s done for the Irregulars. Boyish enthusiasm can be charming in a boy, but in a man…not so much. Set that section of the book aside, however, and On Conan Doyle is a very interesting addition to Sherlockiana.