The Patient's Eyes: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

By David Pirie

Fiction : Mystery & Detective - General

Minotaur Books
Publication date: August 2003

ISBN: 9781429979405

Digital Book format: ePub (Adobe DRM)

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"It is to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes."-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to his mentor, renowned forensic scientist Dr. Joseph Bell

As a young medical student, Arthur Conan Doyle, famously studied under the pioneering forensic detective Dr. Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, author David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller which partners Bell (widely believed to be the model for Sherlock Holmes himself) and Doyle as innovators in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era.

When the impoverished young Arthur Doyle opens his first medical practice, he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom bicyclist who vanishes as soon as he is followed. This enigma, however, is soon overshadowed as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events-including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman-that call for the advice of the eminent Dr Bell. But despite coming to Doyle's aid, Dr Bell dismisses the murder of Senor Garcia as a rather unimportant diversion from the incident which Bell considers to have real criminal implications: the matter of the patient's eyes and the solitary cyclist.

David Pirie gained rave reviews for his screenplay depicting the "real" Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Joseph Bell, in the two part, Edgar-nominated TV series "Murder Rooms." Treading that same critically acclaimed ground, The Patient's Eyes is the first in a stand-alone cycle of novels written from Doyle's point of view that include a whole new perspective on the adventures of Bell and Doyle and the genesis of the best-known detective in all of mystery literature. Tense and dramatic The Patient's Eyes marks the debut of a brilliant new crime novelist.