Dear Arthur - Stick with Holmes, This Just Wasn't Your Jam

Despite rumors of unrest in the region, a group of sightseers in Egypt venture too close to Dervish territory, leading to them into the clutches of radical Islamic guerillas. These unfortunate tourists—of American, Irish, British, and French backgrounds, along with their Egyptian servants, tour guides, and “bodyguards”—are forced to travel farther away from friendly territory to a fate of slavery, death…or (for the women in the group) worse. With the chance of rescue dwindling with every sand dune they pass, their only hope is to convert to Islam under duress…or to escape.

The title of this book doesn’t quite fit its contents. While tragic stuff happens in this book, it’s not nearly so grim to warrant it being part of the title. For that matter, the Korosko happens to be the cruise boat the tourists are sailing down the Nile, which they leave early on in order to see some Egyptian ruins. This particular “misdirect” was fine by me—while the beginning of the story was Agatha Christie-esque in its introduction of the motley group of protagonists, I wasn’t really looking forward to an And Then There Were None plot of making me care about the characters only to cruelly pick them off one by one.

That said, I was underwhelmed with the book as a whole. Had I not known the author was Arthur Conan Doyle, I wouldn’t have guessed it from his sloppy, saccharine writing style, long monologues about how Hope Springs Eternal or the Unity of Man, or the neat, sentimental ending that is anything but tragic. Gone is the sort of crisp writing that characterizes the Holmes stories, where every word is charged with energy and purpose. Additionally, Doyle indulges himself in a sort of storytelling that is really not his forte—a romantic subplot.

For all its faults, I got the sense that The Tragedy of the Korosko was an ambitious—if unsuccessfully executed—attempt at something outside Arthur Conan Doyle’s comfort zone. This story examines (if a bit sloppily) how people react to emergencies and the psychological and personality changes that happen under trauma and stress. It even subtly critiques imperialistic views—questioning a mindset of British superiority that was probably quite popular among Conan Doyle’s readers at the time.

In short, Arthur Conan Doyle tackles some themes that were ahead of his time. Unfortunately, he didn’t do it in his usual minimalist writing style (which was also ahead of its time), opting for a flowery Victorian method that hasn’t aged as well as the ideas they convey.