The Sign of Four (1890) (Sherlock Holmes, #2) by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Holmes stories are surprisingly timeless; one might be shocked at how modern many of the characters and stories are. Holmes, as a character, will never go out of style. He's the quintessential mad scientist type; drug-addicted, uneven in social circumstances, and deeply brilliant on the topics which affect his chosen vocation while remaining ignorant on those that do not. Watson is not the "sidekick" he's so often depicted as, but more an interested bystander with his own goals and desires who becomes friends with his roommate, Holmes, and tags along. He's a protege only in that he's interested in Holmes' activities, not in that he has any real wish to train under Holmes or follow in his footsteps. You get the sense that, despite his age, he's already had his story and is settling into a sort of retirement, or second life. And that allows him to be a fully formed character in his own right, with the charming flaws that make characters so likable: On the surface he's a typical soldier; he's known women across the world, he loves gambling, etc. But we get to see him below the surface, as the observant, intelligent man he is. And having that surface coat of soldierly paint makes us like him all the more, privileged as we are to know his inner thoughts.

Probably most surprising to me when reading The Sign of Four is how much the characters and tone match Guy Ritchie's 2009 film. I've got a far different picture of Holmes in my head than Robert Downey, Jr., but the overall tone of that film—it's light-hearted strangeness, and the camaraderie of its two leads—very closely matches Doyle's original work.

The more time Holmes and Watson spend together, the more fun they are for us to spend time with. Like real-life best friends, they begin to speak more familiarly with one another, leading to fun dialogue between the two, with which we chuckle along like somebody at a party laughing at a joke from outside the discussion circle.

The mystery narratives are spiritual successors to Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe may have blazed the trail, but Doyle's stories are far more polished in terms of characterization, pace, and setting. From Poe Doyle also picks up the strangeness that makes the Holmes tales more colorful: Perhaps inspired by Poe's inclusion of the murderous ape run amok, Doyle throws at us peg-legged criminals and malformed midgets from across the globe in The Sign of The Four, or the spontaneous, mid-narrative break into the story of Joseph Smith and the founding of the Mormonism in the Americas in Doyle's previous episode, A Study In Scarlet. These stories are apt mysteries without these quirks, but they serve to break up the pacing and seriousness of a crime story that might have become too dry or bleak without them.

The only criticism I feel comfortable leveling at the story is the way the conclusion is presented via an expository dump. Perhaps there might have been a way of more organically fitting it into greater story. I suppose this is going to become a norm among Holmes stories moving forward.

Doyle's Holmes stories are peak entertainment; well-written and eminently readable for all generations. The Sign of Four, like its predecessor, provides us with a fun windowpane via which to gaze on late-Victorian London.

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