Sherlock Holmes and the Ultimate Disguise: From the Annals of John H Watson, MD

Lisa Arsenault is a public-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

This is the second instalment of the Holmes in Canada trilogy,
chronicling Holmes’s activities during his disappearance after his
reported demise in Africa in 1891. This case is supposedly narrated by
John H. Watson, M.D., Holmes’s friend and constant companion; the
author faithfully reproduces the literary conversational technique and
narrative style employed by A. Conan Doyle. Holmes is at his sleuthing
best: finding and interpreting clues and confounding those around him,
particularly Watson, with his detecting ability.

Their adventures take them to Kingston, Toronto (York), and Niagara
Falls, where they encounter many exotic and occasionally sinister
figures. They travel by train with a mobile zoo. Watson does a stint in
Kingston Penitentiary. Holmes disguises himself as an Arab hypnotist,
and the two become involved in a murder case tied in with the
“Canadian Railway Scandals.”

Readers of classic detective fiction will enjoy this novel. It is
faithful to the original Sherlock Holmes genre, but the Canadian setting
is fresh and intriguing. The flavor of old Ontario is carefully evoked,
particularly in the details of train travel and other modes of
transportation used around the turn of the century.