I appreciate the intrigue, and that Holmes was actually a little delighted that he was outsmarted (and out-acted) by a woman, but I'm a little puzzled as to why the Grand Duke insists that a woman who has been blackmailing him is a "woman of her word" and won't expose him now.

Audiobook, part of the enormous Audible "Sherlock Holmes" compilation of works read by Stephen Fry. I'm slowly working my way through it. I'll be listening to the rest of the short stories in "Adventures of" later. ( )

I blew through the free Kindle collection of Sherlock Holmes stories in about two weeks. They were pretty silly. The situations were unlikely, and the creaky Victorian underpinnings were a bit embarrassing in places. I don't know that I'll be seeking out more Holes stories in the near future. ( )

Enjoyable short Sherlock Holmes story. Memorable for being one occasion where the detective falls short of a complete success. ( )

Doyle’s novels on the incomparable and inimitable Sherlock Holmes are presumably some of the most significant detective stories ever written, drawing a perfectly unique and charismatic character with a lot of recognition value, accompanied by Watson, the everyman commenting on Sherlock’s ways of behaviour with observations and comments of his own. I’ve only read one of them so far before deciding to download the „Adventures of Sherlock Holmes“, a collection of twelve different short stories, which can be found free of charge and legally on the website of Project Gutenberg. And I have to admit, the one I read was probably not the best one to start with when reading the Sherlock novels – it was „The Valley of Fear“, Doyle’s seventh Sherlock novel, and probably the weakest one, judging from several reviews and my own feeling about it. After reading that one, I quitted reading the Sherlock novels for some months, finding it difficult to bestir myself to read „A Study in Scarlet“, the first novel about Sherlock if I got it right. But now it has finally found its place on my „to-read-next“ list.

„A Scandal in Bohemia“ has been the inspiration for the first episode of the second season of BBC’s successful Sherlock Holmes TV adaption. By creating the interesting character of Irene Adler, Doyle managed to show another new side of the perfectly portrayed character of Sherlock (not to mention that the modernized version of Irene Adler, played by Lara Pulver, has been even more interesting and versatile with all those different sides the authors decided to allow her character to show). It is no particularly long story (approximately 8,5k words) and, thus, cannot be compared to any of Doyle’s novels (only one of which has been read by me so far, a fact I’m willing to change during the next time). But Doyle was capable of creating an interesting atmosphere, especially by including a lot of humorous conversations, and his writing style is pretty captivating (sort of the contrary to what I remember about reading „The Valley of Fear“, but I’m prepared to eliminate my poor impression of this one in order to gain a new opinion on the Sherlock novels).

I’d give this short story 4.0 stars, recommending it to everyone who likes reading a well-plotted crime story with interesting characters. And it’s free, so don’t think too long about reading this – just read it. ( )

Bested by a woman, gotcha Mr Holmes! I thoroughly enjoyed the fast pace of this story, loved the disguises and the ending was just magic! ( )