NEW! “The Greek Interpreter,” a Sherlock Holmes Story by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

One of Doyle’s favorite Holmes stories is this one, about an interpreter who gets caught up in a strange “country house” mystery, replete with plaster of paris victims and giggling villains. We also are introduced to Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, and the hilarious Diogenes Club, the favorite of unsociable, “unclubbable,” men– such as Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft later reappears in “The Bruce-Partington Plans,” also available right here on Audibly Speaking, with audio narration by (me) Rick Reiman. I hope you enjoy it.

The Greek Interpreter, image by Sidney Paget

The Greek Interpreter, image by Sidney Paget

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The Incredible, Shrinking, Supreme Court: Thoughts on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Jefferson

Here is my editorial on the Supreme Court’s decision today, June 24, 2022, overturning a Supreme Court decision of nearly fifty years’ standing, and, for the first time, restricting an individual right that it had once recognized itself. The Court’s reputation will likely fall in the days ahead, in no small part because of the specious arguments in its majority opinion, signed by Samuel Alito. Abortion rights will remain a divisive issue dividing Americans, as this billboard, in a photograph taken by Carol Highsmith, makes clear. It is likely to become more divisive still as a result of the shortcomings in the Court’s reasoning in this decision, which makes no attempt to reconcile the contradictions between this decision and previous ones, cases sometimes including ones decided by Alito and his fellow majority on the Court this week.

Billboard on 9/11 and Abortion

Billboard commemorating 9/11 and folding in one side of the divide on abortion in America. Photo by Carol Highsmith, donated copyright-free to the Library of Congress.

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NEW! “The Musgrave Ritual,” by Arthur Conan Doyle, a Sherlock Holmes Story

Sherlock Holmes

In this early entry in the Sherlock Holmes canon, Doyle has Sherlock Holmes doing most of the talking. That’s unusual in the canon, because it is typically John Watson who tells the story, not Holmes. This was on Doyle’s short list of favorite stories, and it is easy to see why. It has elements of both the familiar and the macabre, in terms of detective story structure. One character goes mad and another is buried… but, let’s not have any spoilers. Suffice to say that Holmes has little to go on in solving this mystery, but he makes a lot of what little he has with which to work. The Holmes in this story is a bit sheepish and shorn of pride, another unusual turn for the “greatest consulting detective in the world,” and for a man usually convinced of the truth of the label.

The Musgrave Ritual, Sidney Paget

Holmes gets to the bottom of the case of the Musgrave Ritual

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Watergate at Fifty: June 17, 1972 to June 17, 2022

Jefferson
Watergate complex

What was Watergate all about? What was Nixon guilty of and how was he brought to heel? What are the myths that still encrust the story of Watergate? In this episode, this historian fills in the background, exposes the “Woodstein” myths that conceal the truths about Watergate, and briefly makes some cursory comparisons and contrasts with the darker threats to democracy that exist today, with the Trump scandals.

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NEW! “The Adventure of the Three Students,” a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

In this rather offbeat addition to the Sherlock Holmes Canon, Holmes somehow finds himself on a college campus battling the timeless forces of student cheating. Three students are each suspected of taking an advance and fraudulent peek at test questions for an exam qualifying them for an important scholarship. Only one can be guilty. When the examiner knows that Holmes is on campus, he implores our hero to find the “rascal” and expose him. It seems Holmes cannot escape the world of crime no matter where he travels. Unlike in “The Regent Squires,” however, Holmes does not welcome this particular intrusion in his plans. He has to be converted to it by the interesting nature of the problem. In my audio narration, I adopt the style of Jeremy Brett, in my view the best Holmes ever to appear on film. Read for you, of course, by Rick Reiman.

The Adventure of the Three Students, Drawing by Sydney Paget in the Public Domain

Gilchrist confesses in “The Adventure of the Three Students”

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“The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” a Sherlock Holmes Story

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READ FOR YOU BY RICK REIMAN. In this story by Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes must represent a client being blackmailed by the notorious criminal, Charles Augustus Milverton. Once again, Holmes uses the practices of the criminal himself, something he seems all too eager to employ in more than one of the stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon. Watson joins in the effort and the result is an action story piled upon a mystery tale.

Charles Augustus Milverton

Holmes and Watson confront Charles Augustus Milverton, the notorious blackmailer.

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Narrating a Sherlock Holmes Short Story: The Clues behind the Clues

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Here I share some insights into what I have learned about the hidden Sherlock Holmes, from reading and narrating the Conan Doyle stories. To do this I use one of his most popular stories by way of illustration, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” You can listen to my narration of this classic short story elsewhere on AudiblySpeaking.com.

Reference Links

Narrations by Rick Reiman on Audibly Speaking of:

The Five Orange Pips

The Adventure of the Speckled Band

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NEW! “The Five Orange Pips,” A Sherlock Holmes Story, read by Rick Reiman

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Once again, as in “A Study in Scarlett,” Arthur Conan Doyle reaches across the pond for material for a Sherlock Holmes story. In this case, it is a short story, about the long reach of the past and the legacy of the Ku Klux Klan in America. Three generations of Englishman face death from the grandfather’s involvement in the racist activities of the Klan. This is one of the few stories where, although Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery, he is late, much too late, in doing so.

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NEW! “The Final Problem,” A Sherlock Holmes Story by Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes

Read by Rick Reiman, this was Doyle’s anticipated ending to the Sherlock Holmes story, the story that would “finish” Holmes off in the early 1890s, and leave Doyle free to write about other characters whom he was not so tired of. But it was not to be. Doyle’s readers, including Queen Victoria, insisted that Doyle resurrect Holmes. And so, by a rhetorical slight of hands, Doyle later saves Holmes from his suicidal embrace of, and fall with, the villain Moriarty, into the Reichenbach falls. That story is told in “The Empty House,” which you can all listen to, right here on AudiblySpeaking, the podcast.

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“Six ‘Shots’ in Dallas: ‘Framing’ the Perpetrator of the Kennedy Assassination through the Zapruder Film, 1963-2013,” Part 1 of 3, Read by the Author

JFK Assassination

Richard A. Reiman, host of AudiblySpeaking and author of the article above, narrated this article, published in The Journal of Perpetrator Research, 2(2), 2019, 180-226,  and available as a Create Commons document at https://jpr.winchesteruniversitypress.org/3/volume/2/issue/2/. Today’s recording is a reading of Part 1 of 3 of this article. Coming soon: Part 2.

Journal of Perpetrator Research (2019)

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NEW! The ANNOTATED “Adventures of Silver Blaze,” A Sherlock Holmes Story

Sherlock Holmes

In this episode, I both read and annotate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Adventures of Silver Blaze.” Elsewhere on this site, I have a narration with no paused for annotations. In this new version on this page, I interrupt the narration from time to time to explain the significance of each passage that we encounter.  Let me know if you enjoy this presentation, please!

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