Barrie Roberts (1939–2007)

This was an excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel, with an authentic Conan Doyle. An aristocrat loved by the local people for his generosity to the poor is murdered. While the murder is initially blamed on local poachers, Holmes quickly deduces otherwise. The murder has its origin in events 40 years before in the horrors and oppression of Van Diemen's land (now Tasmania) to which convicts were transported, often for quite minor offences brought about by poverty-stricken and desperate lives. Flashbacks form around a quarter of the narrative as the reasons behind the events in the 1880s are coloured in, and the villain behind a series of murders exposed. Very good and quick read.… (altro)