Beyond Sherlock Holmes – Tales of Twilight and the Unseen

The annual Delhi Book Fair is a treasure trove for hidden gems if you know where to look and how to avoid the crowd. This year I hit upon quite a few jackpots (Cha-ching!) while I went book hunting. I was able to visit it only twice this year (I know I should have made more time, don’t judge me already) because having a day job can suck at times like this.

Among the different coffee table books and the rom-com copies that were literally being sold by the dozen, I stumbled onto a less crowded corner of paperbacks (because who will notice them when you have everyone drooling over slick, hard covers?) and while I was skimming the shelves, the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle caught my eye (obviously)!

I picked up the book and I was about to share it with a friend, who had accompanied me there because he was knew to the world of books and I thought introducing him to Sherlock Holmes would ensure a good start for him, when I noticed that the book wasn’t titled Sherlock Holmes at all. I flipped the book over twice just to be sure. It looked pretty plain, meaning no exciting cover or blurb, just the title, “Tales of Twilight and the Unseen”. It was split second decision but a wise one when I bought the book because what a read it has turned out to be.

Tales of Twilight and the Unseen is a collection of short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of mystery and the supernatural. These are tales of ghosts, obscure scientific experiments and other unexplained phenomena. I was highly skeptical in the beginning, because I have never read anything from him other than the famous detective series. However, a few pages in to The Brown Hand and I knew I was hooked. The supernatural has never looked so effortlessly written with just the right amount of intrigue and fiction.

Some of my favourite stories were The Brown Hand, Playing with Fire, The Ring of Thoth, The Los Amigos Fiasco, Lot No. 249 and De Profundis. What I liked the most that though a lot of the stories bordered around something related to the occult, none of them were down right scary or serious. There was still a hint of comedy despite the uncommon genres.

The Ring of Thoth

Another fantastic secret I learnt about the creator of Sherlock is that he loves spinning an open ending to his stories which we didn’t see with any of his detective tales. I was surprised that many of these short reads had open endings because it is rare to see a book end with loose ends and still make it look natural. To be honest, I have only encountered that with Haruki Murakami so far.

The language was also simpler to understand as compared to other contemporary authors of the time. Obviously there was the accent of the Georgian Englishman, but nothing too complicated. I did find hints of an entitled Briton regarding certain conquests in India but that happened on only one or two occasions throughout the book. On a technical note, the sentence structures were a little complex but could still be followed. Each story had a nicely curated plot though I would have loved to see a better ending for some of them like Cyprian Overbeck Wells and B. 24.

I don’t want to give anything away, because I am sure other Sherlock fans will want to read this book too, so I am keeping this review really short. However, I was glad to have gotten an opportunity to discover a much unknown side to such a well known personality.

I would definitely give this a 3.5/5.0 rating because I guess I am biased after having read the The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and I had the same level of expectation going in to this book, but the book does have many interesting stories for you to read on the go. Tales of Twilight and the Unseen is available for purchase on Amazon and while you are there, maybe you could also give a once over to Stardust and Fire (written by yours truly) and buy that too!

Have you ever found a lesser known book by a well renowned author? Comment below and share some interesting titles and I will try to cover them this year!