'The Illustrious Client': An Austrian adventurer who corrupts young women proves one of Holmes' most evil adversaries in what Conan Doyle judged as one of his best stories.
'The Blanched Soldier': Holmes works without Watson to help an ex-serviceman from the Boer War uncover a friend who has mysteriously disappeared.
'The Mazarin Stone': One of the world's largest diamonds is stolen. To recover it, Holmes sits in 221B Baker Street and waits to be murdered.
'The Three Gables': Holmes faces a formidable female criminal and a gang of intimidators when he agrees to help the widow of an old client who has received an unusual offer to sell her house... and all its contents.
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
With the recent Sherlock movies hitting the big screen, there has been a resurgence of interest in Conan Doyle’s enigmatic detective. Holmes has also been on our small screens in various incarnations for many years, with some truly memorable TV interpretations by eminent actors such as Jeremy Brett. But because of time constraints, TV adaptations tend to lose some of the little details that make Doyle’s stories so captivating. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes rectifies that. It features four different cases that ably demonstrate the enduring appeal of the greatest detective ever. Here you can see the super-sleuth’s brilliant mind applying itself to some of his most challenging cases.
Clive Merrison and Michael Williams star as Holmes and his long-suffering sidekick, Watson. What sets these apart from the movies is that each adventure allows the listener to appreciate the way in which Conan Doyle uses language to persuade, include and deceive the listener into pursuing certain avenues of thought. Of course, once Holmes solves a case, he is able to explain the mechanics of each one to us in his cold and clinical way, but Merrison adds an extra dimension to Holmes’ character, revealing that each victory may be at some personal cost. Williams is equally talented, conveying just how difficult life can be working alongside someone who bears the burden of genius.
The four adventures in the casebook are The Illustrious Client, The Blanched Soldier, The Mazarin Stone and The Three Gables. Each of these cases tests a different aspect of Holmes’ powers and reveals different facets of his complicated character.
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