Hound of the Baskervilles

This novel was quite different from the other Sherlock Holmes novels I've read, and from the short stories.  Holmes was hardly in it.  He sent Watson to do all the investigating and showed up for the climax to tell Watson that he already knew what was going on.  Plus, he had the final pieces to solve the mystery.

Not that the reader could quite solve this one.  It hinged on a portrait that we couldn't see and wasn't described by Conan Doyle.  Some of the behaviour of the villain might have given it away but he was already pegged as an eccentric so it didn't seem that unusual for him.  I did know that the hound was not a demon, and whomever was using it to scare the Baskervilles was stealing boots to give it the scent.  However, I would not have guessed at the love triangle between Baskerville and the Stapletons.  Or that Lyons was in any way important to solving the mystery unless she out and out told them what she knew.

I felt that the subplot with the convict was an unnecessary distraction.  It felt like padding the word count to give Watson something to do while he waited for Holmes to arrive and solve everything.  It gave him an excuse to be out on the moor to see Holmes in shadow but again, I didn't feel it moved the plot along to have the poor man killed.

There's apparently some suggestion that since this was written after Holmes' apparent death in The Final Problem this story does not have the real Sherlock Holmes in it.  The theory attempts to explain why Watson takes a more prominent role in this novel than he has previously.  To me, it's obvious that it's an earlier adventure of Holmes.  He and Watson are still living together at Baker Street and there is no mention of Mrs. Watson or his flourishing private practice.  It seems more likely that Conan Doyle was simply trying something new.  It's documented that he was tired of writing stories of Sherlock Holmes and had intended the character to mock skeptics.  When it became popular he felt his hand was forced to continue.  Even after purposefully killing the character so he wouldn't have to write it anymore.