It’ll only took me a couple of days to listen to this next novel in the Holmes canon. I must say, they can be addictive (especially as an alternative to the intense and psychological Crime and Punishment that I am reading). Holmes is developed a bit more in this, but he is still far from being completely humanised. Reading the earlier parts of the novel, I mused that Holmes is gay robot, but then I realised that he was just a an asexual robot with mysognistic tendencies (“Women are never to be trusted entirely,”). Though I think Holmes’s regard for Watson is a winning quality of his. I quite like Watson; he’s very British, stiff upper lip and all, but he is affable. I like the moments of their friendship such as when Holmes plays the violin to help Watson to sleep. This story continues to have rather sensational backstory to the main plot murder that involves a colonial setting, convincts, India, treasure, and a cannibalistic native. As with the previous story, the plot revolves around revenge. Though, one of the antagonists of this story is rather hard to believe when he recounts the tale at the end. One can tell how Conan Doyle reined his technique as he continued to write the Holmes stories. The next one is the first collection of short stories and one of the best of the canon so I’m looking forward to it.