A Slight Trick of the Mind - Tapa dura

Beautiful . . . It's what a novel should be * * Washington Post * * A wise and touching examination of the human condition * * Los Angeles Times Book Review * * Cullin is an unusually sophisticated theorist of human nature . . . Beautiful * * New York Times Book Review * * Wonderfully written and heartbreaking * * San Francisco Chronicle * * Quite extraordinary . . . Our hero-our eternal hero-has never been more heroic, or more human * * Village Voice * * This is literary crime fiction at its best * * Good Housekeeping * * Extremely touching * * Independent * * Original and surprising * * Sunday Times * * A meandering, unobtrusively mystical meditation on the oddities of human nature * * Weekly Telegraph * * A curious, unusual and wonderful novel...this is an essential and truly fascinating read * * Scotsman * *

"Why'd she come here? Why'd she come to you?" A cloud passed over the sun, casting a long shadow across the gardens. "Hope, I suspect," said Holmes. "It seems I am known for discovering answers when events appear desperate." It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn't even know he was asking-about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind's ability to know.