El Problema Final by Arturo Pérez-Reverte***

Reading dates: 01 October – 04 November 2023

Occasionally, I like reading the correct book in my mother tongue, so when I heard that Arturo Pérez-Reverte, who I used to read a lot, had published a new novel based on Sherlock Holmes’s mysteries, I thought it would be the chosen one for the year.

But reading Pérez-Reverte requires effort. His books are clever, almost too clever, or perhaps they show how clever he thinks he is.  El Problema Final is of no exception. While being a love letter to all thinks Holmes, including Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of the detective (the main protagonist is a thinly veiled Rathbone: Hopalong Basil), I feel it will only be understood by people who know the stories off by heart like him (and me). And I mean understood, not loved or enjoyed. As a Holmesian, I found this novel a little too pastiche, too clichéd Holmes, with no innovation, as perhaps the Benedict Cumberbatch or Johnny Lee Miller’s TV shows aim incorporate. It was ok, entertaining, a way of reminiscing the better tales and pass the time.