Cry of the Innocents

November 13, 2017
Despite some heavy-handed foreshadowing early in this capable sequel to 2016’s The Patchwork Devil (“Little did I know that the events of this calamitous evening would pale into insignificance compared with the perils that lay ahead”), Scott credibly emulates Dr. Watson’s narrative voice in the service of an engrossing plot. One day in 1891, Dr. and Mrs. Watson, who have taken refuge at 221B after a fierce storm damaged their home, are present when a Catholic priest shows up on Holmes’s doorstep. The priest, later identified as Monsignor Ermacora from the Vatican, whispers the phrase “Il corpe,” then dies, apparently of cholera. In search of answers, Holmes and Watson travel to Bristol, where the monsignor was investigating reports of a miracle connected with Edwyn Warwick, an 18th-century philanthropist and merchant who made his fortune from the slave trade. A local legend claims that when Warwick’s missing coffin was eventually located, a century after his death, his corpse showed no signs of decay. The original plot line is refreshing, and the portrayals of the leads are generally faithful to the Sherlock Holmes canon.