Friday 11 November 2022

Three Pint Problems (The Accidental Detective Book 3) - Melvyn Small


Doctor John Watson has reached into his archives to treat us to three feature-length adventures. In The Darlington Substitution, The Devil’s Advocate and Murder on the Teesside Princess we see Boro’s greatest detective at the height of his wisecracking, foulmouthed, law disregarding and deductive brilliance.

If the devil is in the detail, he has nowhere to hide.
 

What did I think?

I absolutely love Melvyn Small's Sherlock Holmes stories and Three Pint Problems has a hat trick of stories that delighted and entertained me.  This Sherlock Holmes may have the same deductive reasoning as the original but he's been brought completely up-to-date by adding razor sharp wit and a Teesside postcode.

The three stories are all brilliant and I couldn't pick a favourite out from among them as I loved them all.  They read perfectly as standalones but with the same characters throughout, it's good to follow their lives too.  It's definitely a book I would read again as this is actually the second time I've read The Darlington Substitution, as it was previously published as a novella, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time round.

The stories are told from the perspective of Doctor John Watson and they're sharp, clever and incredibly entertaining.  I love how the spirit of the original Sherlock Holmes has been perfectly encapsulated and reinvented as a witty, sweary Boro lad.  Melvyn Small's writing is fantastic, creating imaginative problems that only the brilliant mind of Sherlock Holmes can solve.

I'm not usually a fan of short stories but I'm a huge fan of Boro's Sherlock Holmes and I could (and will) read these over and over again.  Melvyn Small also pays homage to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with several references to the original stories, for example Boro Holmes drinks pints of Engineer's Thumb in The Twisted Lip which are nods to two of Conan Doyle's short stories.  There are probably loads more references hidden in the stories like Easter Eggs for Sherlock Holmes fans to discover.

I really can't recommend Three Pint Problems highly enough; it's funny, entertaining and absolutely brilliant.  It's a book not to be missed and worthy of every single one of the five stars I have rated it.

I chose to read a digital ARC received from the author and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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