I just finished Graham Moore’s The Sherlockian. I don’t recall if I stumbled on it because of other Sherlock Holmes themed books I have read or if it was something I saw on Goodreads. I picked it up Friday at the library and found it hard to put down.

Here is a synopsis from Goodreads:

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective’s next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning — crowds sported black armbands in grief — and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had “murdered” Holmes in “The Final Problem,” he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.

Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he’s about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world’s leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold – using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories – who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

In the acknowledgements of the book, the author states that the book is loosely based on real events. Many characters in the story are real (Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde) while others are compilations, in a sense of many people.

What I really enjoyed about the story is the back and forth from present day to Doyle’s England. The intertwining of the past and present really made the book a fun read.

I had no idea that Bram Stoker (who wrote Dracula) and Arthur Conan Doyle were friends in real life! I did know that Doyle hated his Sherlock Holmes character so much that he killed him off.

Whether you are a Sherlock Holmes fan or just love a good mystery, I think you’ll enjoy The Sherlockian.