THE TANGLED SKEIN

From 2012, Big Finish‘s audio adventure The Tangled Skein by David Stuart Davies (adapted by Richard Dinnick) sees Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Briggs) and Dr Watson (Richard Earl) face off against Count Dracula (Giles Watling).

Taking the verisimilitude of Sherlock Holmes to its limits and encroaching on the world of fantasy and conjecture is something that happens when the Victorian era setting of Conan Doyle’s creation crosses into the world of gothic horror.  Conan Doyle himself set the character on that path with the “Hound” legend of The Hound of the Baskervilles, only he did it by keeping the legend firmly fixed as some historical myth and not something that affected the nature of the story.

Many others, however, have sought to blur the lines more deeply and we often see tales of Sherlock Holmes facing Jack the Ripper.  Whereas Jack the Ripper is generally considered as having been real, this time around we see Holmes’ encounter with Dracula – a character less easily attached to anything that’s real.

The Tangled Skein begins with a restless Holmes having no active case to be working on, and the papers filled with hysterical tales of vampires.  As if to ease the verisimilitude of Holmes into the world of vampires and Dracula, the writer links the story to The Hound of the Baskervilles, almost as a sequel.  Watson spends much of the opening narrative telling us of how the effects of that incident led Sir Henry Baskerville and Dr Mortimer to engage on a world cruise to settle Sir Henry’s nerves.  He also tells us of how the Barrymores enacting their retirement from Baskerville Hall and have gone to open a guest house on the coast, which leaves Baskerville Hall deserted.

It’s at least amusing to listen to a “sequel” to The Hound of the Baskervilles some, some 80 years after Arthur Wontner did the same.  I suppose it can be suggested that the Wontner story took place between The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Tangled Skein if you wanted to try and place the stories canonically.

As yet, I’ve barely begun this adventure (about 15 minutes into the 2hour duration) but, like others in this range, it sets the atmosphere well and both Earl and Briggs are now so familiar in their roles of Watson and Holmes that it’s a very comfortable listening experience.  I fear the day will come when I run out of Sherlock Holmes adventures and will have to fork out for the more recent releases, but I still have a few more to come yet.