The Spider's Web

 

Philip Purser-Hallard The Spider's Web (2020)
I'm really beginning to suspect that Holmes may simply not be my thing. Actually, if I'm honest with myself, I know full well that he never really was, but it seemed worth making the effort here because it's Philip Purser-Hallard who seems more or less incapable of dull or otherwise merely workmanlike prose. Here, he introduces Holmes and Watson to an adjacent fictional landscape inhabited by persons from The Importance of Being Earnest and others, placing me at an additional disadvantage through my being more or less completely ignorant regarding the work of Oscar Wilde.

So I'm not absolutely comfortable with the form - page after page of exposition following the process of deduction, concerning which, objections would probably seem churlish given that The Spider's Web is detective fiction, and I went into this with both eyes open; and I experienced occasional difficulties keeping track of all the various deductive threads and the persons to whom they were referring, which probably wouldn't have happened were I more familiar with Wilde's people.

Nevertheless, it still just about worked for me, being beautifully written, as ever, and while I'm obviously in no position to weigh in on how well Purser-Hallard has captured the voices of Ernest, Algernon and the rest, I sort of suspect that he has because they're a delight to read, and his portrayal of Lady Bracknell is magnificent, uproarious, duly terrifying, and has convinced me that I really need to familiarise myself with Earnest as soon as possible. Even when writing at some distance outside one's comfort zone, Philip Purser-Hallard's work is always a pleasure to read.