The Arnifour Affair

In The Arnifour Affair, Gregory Harris essentially recasts Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as a quietly gay couple in the same time period. Here, Ethan Pruitt, the Watson character, is the former addict, but Colin Pendragon retains all of Holmes’ quirky, brilliant character. Frankly, this couple provides an entertaining, refreshing twist. Unfortunately, they deserve a better cast of characters and plot with which to work.

Lady Arnifour’s husband is killed and her niece is left comatose after a violent attack. When the authorities cast blame on a long time employee and his son, Lady Arnifour hires Pendragon to rectify the matter. Pendragon and Pruitt must parse through the Arnifour family’s seemingly endless secrets to discover the truth.

While Pendragon and Pruitt are well written characters, the other characters seem one dimensional and almost too uniformly corrupt to be believable. A few more even vaguely redeeming qualities would add greatly. Furthermore, the plot is a bit predictable if the reader reads with any care. That said, Pendragon and Pruitt are great sleuthing characters, and I hope they go on to solve more challenging mysteries.