CONNED AGAIN, WATSON

By: Steve Biodrowski
Date: Monday, June 11, 2001

'Crime is common; logic is rare. It is on the logic rather than the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded a course of lectures into a series of tales.' Thus spoke Sherlock Holmes, chiding his biographer Dr. Watson in one of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Sir Arthur of course was not about to risk diminishing the entertainment value of his tales by taking the advice he had put into his fictional detective's mouth; those sixty original stories (four novels and fifty-six short stories) are full of atmosphere, romance, and melodrama a combination that many have imitated but few have duplicated. The lure of writing new Holmes stories seems almost irresistible to many authors, but few of them do anything really interesting with the character; they simply put him through the familiar paces again...until now.

In CONNED AGAIN, WATSON, physicist and science author Colin Bruce dwells on the logic, not the crime (as he did previously in THE EINSTEIN PARADOX, AND OTHER SCIENCE MYSTERIES SOLVED BY SHERLOCK HOLMES). In fact, many of the stories do not involve crime at all, but misperceptions, paradoxes, and misunderstandings. Atmosphere and characterization are kept to a minimum, and each tale is constructed to illustrate lessons in the science of mathematics and probability. As such, the stories can be considered science fiction of a sort, although the science has little to do with technology. These stories do not contain rocketships and rayguns, but they are filled with fascinating puzzles and apparent contradictions that illustrate facts about the way our universe works, and who better than the immortal Sherlock to offer up the explanations?


The book justifies its title with the first story, 'The Case of the Unfortunate Businessman,' which details the events regarding Watson's cousin, James, whose failing business has led him to desperate dealings with unsavory characters. Holmes quickly sees through a con perpetrated on James, and plans a way to catch the culprits, but the rest of the story shifts to focus on the business practices that brought James to ruin in the first place. In step by step fashion, Holmes points out the pitfalls of the 'cabdrivers' fallacy' (expending excess effort to meet set goals even when the market is slow) and the 'prior investment fallacy' (sticking with losing programs because of the amount previously invested in them).

Later stories illustrate such topics as: the gamblers' fallacies (such as the belief the probability will make a roulette wheel more likely turn up red after a run on black); the birthday paradox; game theory; Bell curves; and Bible Codes. In each, a client comes to Holmes with some kind of problem, and more often than not the issue can be resolved with a verbal explanation, avoiding the kind of on-the-scene investigations one normally expects in mystery stories. Holmes' speeches are generally lucid and concise, making for entertaining reading, even if the real purpose is clearly to educate.

If there is a problem with this approach, it is that Holmes becomes little more than a mouthpiece for various theories; most of the characterization comes not from the stories themselves but from a reader's prior familiarity with Holmes. This is most amply illustrated by 'The Case of the Unmarked Graves,' in which Holmes takes a mostly off-screen role, while the Reverend Charles Dodgson steps forward to offer up the mathematical explanations for the probabilities of finding what lies beneath certain tombstones in an ancient family cemetery. Even if you recognize the real name of the man who wrote ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the character's dialogue sounds so exactly like Holmes that you keep expecting him to tear off his reverend garb and reveal himself to be the detective in disguise.

Having noted that flaw, it must be said that this book is far better than most Holmes pastiches. The appeal of the character is his ability to see through problems and to explain them in a way that makes us believe in his ability to understand them. Colin Bruce manages that element marvelously. If the stories themselves are nothing but trifles meant to illustrate his lessons, that's fine, too; most of the Conan Doyle tales were likewise little more than vehicles for Holmes' prowess. Although CONNED AGAIN is far from typical mystery writing, it should appeal to Sherlock's fans, and to fans of mathematical conundrums, brain teasers, puzzles, and paradoxes.