THE JERICHO MANUSCRIPT

Sherlock Holmes investigates the murder of a religious scholar and seeks a missing manuscript in Doyle’s mystery novel.

Reverend David Adams finds his friend, Canon Alfred Lilly, dead at his desk, and immediately turns to Dr. John Watson for help, knowing that his famous investigatory partner, Sherlock Holmes, will want to scrutinize the scene before it is disturbed. Since there is no sign of theft, the police quickly conclude that Lilly’s death is a suicide, but Holmes can see that he was murdered—minute clues point to a “Mohammedan” who likely lives in Paris. Also, Holmes believes he was murdered for a document—the Jericho Manuscript—that may contain doctrinal heresies so incendiary they could rock the foundations of the Christian Church, heterodoxies as fascinating as they are maddeningly confusing. Much of the book dwells at luxurious length on these heresies (did Jesus have his “phallus” removed?) often based on the paltriest of evidence, including the interpretation of famous pieces of art. In fact, there are so many of these outlandish ideas entertained—some of them no more credible than fantastical conspiracy theories—that a collection of summaries at the conclusion of the novel is all but necessary for the reader’s comprehension. The conceit of the narrative is that the novel’s text is a manuscript composed by Watson, who decided to withhold its publication until a century after his death, a cautionary measure taken considering the implications of the missing manuscript (“The material is still as controversial now, as it would have been then”). For all its convolution, this is a delightfully inventive book, and includes sparkling cameo appearances from famous figures like Debussy, Mallarme, and Baudelaire. Doyle, though, labors a bit too hard to pack so many heretical twists and turns into the plot, creating a textual density that is finally suffocating. The reader occasionally forgets that there is a murder mystery lurking somewhere in the background, a forgivable mistake since the author seems to make it as well.

An artful murder mystery overstuffed with conspiracy theories about Christian heresies.