Sherlock Holmes Escape Book: The Adventure of the Two Flying Scotsmen

Before writing puzzle-based books, Ormond Sacker served as note-taker and assistant to a London-based consulting detective, a role he held until being controversially superseded by a more qualified and less strangely named replacement. As a young man, Sacker studied medicine at St Bartholemews before joining the British Army, where he was attached as a surgeon to the Berkshire Regiment of Foot. It was specifically feet that led to his dismissal, following an odd number (both in quantity and circumstance) of amputation errors. To this day he stands by his assertion that "left" and "right" are subjective terms that depend upon which end of the table one is standing. His military training, international travels, and experience of curious crime, together with an intimate relationship with the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, have given him a unique view of the world. Such a character is clearly the ideal author of a book of Holmes-based conundrums and problems. Ormond Sacker is sometimes mixed up. At such times he is no card smoker, and lives in cranked rooms.

I experience a pang of annoyance each time I see a generic product branded “Sherlock Holmes” for a quick buck, but this criticism can’t be levelled at the Sherlock Holmes Escape Book series. While the puzzles themselves are generic — the logic puzzles, ciphers and hidden object pictures would work equally well with any other literary detective — the author “Ormond Sacker”has tried hard to capture a feel of the Holmesian world. If Watson is a bit too Nigel Bruce and Sherlock a little too snarky with Watson, we can indulge these interpretations as there are plenty of nods to the seasoned reader. I particularly appreciated the observation that Lestrade could no more resolve the case than Holmes become an association football goalkeeper or judge a bodybuilding competition… The central mystery is nicely Holmesian, with a nod to “The Beryl Coronet”, and the illustrations by Cien-wei Yu are lovely and set the mood.