- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (Mar 9 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385517920
- ISBN-13: 978-0385517928
- Product Dimensions: 16.4 x 3.1 x 24.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 612 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#176,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #70 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Sherlock Holmes
- #74 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Mystery > Anthologies
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Review
Praise for The Devil and Sherlock Holmes:
"A gifted storyteller, Grann has a Sherlock Holmesian gift for unearthing facts that are hidden in plain sight, presenting a crystal-clear narrative and letting his compelling cast of characters speak for themselves.....Easily worth the price of admission, a visit to Grann's rogue's gallery is likely to leave you with a sense, at once awful and awesome, of the profound desire we all have for recognition." --Portland Oregonian
"Grann's obsession with how narratives are told is complex and compelling...But it's the basic stories themselves -- bizarre and fascinating, bolstered by exhaustive research -- that make the book so gripping." --TimeOut New York
Praise for David Grann’s acclaimed New York Times Bestseller, The Lost City of Z
“At once a biography, a detective story and wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing . . . suspenseful . . . rollicking . . .Fascinating reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
”All the pace of a white-knuckle adventure story . . . What a grand tale it is! . . . Thoroughly researched, vividly told, this is a thrill ride from start to finish.” —Marie Arana, —Washington Post
“Outstanding . . . a powerful narrative, stiff lipped and Victorian at the center, trippy at the edges, as if one of those stern men of Conrad had found himself trapped in a novel by García Márquez.” —Rich Cohen, New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating account . . . Grann expertly juggles narrative . . . breathtaking clarity of scene and immediacy; any writer who can breathe life into letters written by scientists in the early 1900s deserves more than a hat tip. Grann brings Fawcett's remarkable story to a beautifully written, perfectly paced fruition.” —Karla Starr, Los Angeles Times
“V idly alive . . . What makes Mr. Grann's telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero—but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL.” —Simon Winchester, Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating . . . impressively researched and skillfully crafted narrative . . . a gripping journey into the unknown”—Chuck Leddy, Boston Globe
“Wildly delivers the goods . . . an unfathomably riveting narrative”—GQ
"A gifted storyteller, Grann has a Sherlock Holmesian gift for unearthing facts that are hidden in plain sight, presenting a crystal-clear narrative and letting his compelling cast of characters speak for themselves.....Easily worth the price of admission, a visit to Grann's rogue's gallery is likely to leave you with a sense, at once awful and awesome, of the profound desire we all have for recognition." --Portland Oregonian
"Grann's obsession with how narratives are told is complex and compelling...But it's the basic stories themselves -- bizarre and fascinating, bolstered by exhaustive research -- that make the book so gripping." --TimeOut New York
Praise for David Grann’s acclaimed New York Times Bestseller, The Lost City of Z
“At once a biography, a detective story and wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing . . . suspenseful . . . rollicking . . .Fascinating reads with all the pace and excitement of a movie thriller and all the verisimilitude and detail of firsthand reportage.” —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
”All the pace of a white-knuckle adventure story . . . What a grand tale it is! . . . Thoroughly researched, vividly told, this is a thrill ride from start to finish.” —Marie Arana, —Washington Post
“Outstanding . . . a powerful narrative, stiff lipped and Victorian at the center, trippy at the edges, as if one of those stern men of Conrad had found himself trapped in a novel by García Márquez.” —Rich Cohen, New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating account . . . Grann expertly juggles narrative . . . breathtaking clarity of scene and immediacy; any writer who can breathe life into letters written by scientists in the early 1900s deserves more than a hat tip. Grann brings Fawcett's remarkable story to a beautifully written, perfectly paced fruition.” —Karla Starr, Los Angeles Times
“V idly alive . . . What makes Mr. Grann's telling of the story so captivating is that he decides not simply to go off in search of yet more relics of our absent hero—but to go off himself in search of the city that Fawcett was looking for so heroically when he suddenly went AWOL.” —Simon Winchester, Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating . . . impressively researched and skillfully crafted narrative . . . a gripping journey into the unknown”—Chuck Leddy, Boston Globe
“Wildly delivers the goods . . . an unfathomably riveting narrative”—GQ
Book Description
Acclaimed New Yorker writer and author of the breakout debut bestseller The Lost City of Z, David Grann offers a collection of spellbinding narrative journalism.
Whether he’s reporting on the infiltration of the murderous Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone- tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries.
Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world’s foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent; and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City’s water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann’s hypnotic accounts display the power—and often the willful perversity—of the human spirit.
Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.
Whether he’s reporting on the infiltration of the murderous Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone- tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries.
Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world’s foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent; and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City’s water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann’s hypnotic accounts display the power—and often the willful perversity—of the human spirit.
Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Investigative Journalism at its Most Fascinating!,
By
This review is from: The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (Hardcover)
Reason for Reading: I loved David Grann's debut book "The Lost City of Z" and really wanted to read this when I heard about it.An extremely interesting book on a variety of different topics. A collection of previously published articles mainly from "The New Yorker" magazine, with three being from other magazines. These are investigative journalism where the author goes out to meet the people involved, shadow them as they go about their business, and interviews criminals in jail, in search of the truth behind a mystery that has never been solved or never quite to satisfaction or just why somebody would do what they do. It makes very fascinating reading. Each article gives a small one liner to let you know the topic of the article and to me personally, some of them I was eager to read, while others didn't seem like they'd be my cup of tea. However, out of the twelve stories there was only one I didn't enjoy and that was one that was about a baseball player and the game. I don't like sports and that story just had nothing else to offer so for me it was a dud. Otherwise, whether I initially thought the subject would interest me or not, I was fascinated with the remaining eleven articles. Even one which is about the old water tunnel system below New York City and the building of the third tunnel. Sounds like something engineering folks might like but I was fascinated with the history of the building of the tunnels which have been worked on since the early 1900s, the dangers, and the personal stories of the men who work down there, often generations of the same family. Other stories include the mysterious murder of a famous Sherlock Holmes scholar, a Frenchman who serially poses as orphaned teenage boys, trying to track down the truth of a man about to be executed for murdering his children who swears he is innocent, a man who was obsessed with capturing the first live giant squid, and the life story of a stick-up man who committed his last robbery at age 79 but who enjoyed escaping from prison more than committing the crimes, and so on. The mysteries and murders I was immediately pulled into, knowing I'd enjoyed those stories. But even the first couple that made me wonder whether they'd be my thing also pulled me in quickly as David Grann is a wonderful writer. From that point on I was eager to read each and every story. He gets up close and personal with his subject; he follows the people he is writing about and he gets in there with them doing the things they do (or standing beside them, watching) and explaining how he feels. He's been in more than one situation where he's admitted that he was scared. He can also pick up on all the different angles of a story so that no matter where a reader's interests lie they will find an angle that interests them. Most of the stories were riveting, the rest were very interesting, and, for me, I struck out with the baseball story. (There just was nowhere else Grann could go with that one and I realise that.) I read the book slowly. Reading one story a night, taking the time to savour and appreciate each story. David Grann is certainly a talented writer who has a way with engaging his reader, and I do hope he is currently working on another book length story for us.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Assortment of Contemporary Stories,
By
This review is from: The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (Hardcover)
The twelve stories recounted in this book are quite varied. Some involve crime, condemned criminals, potential criminals and mobsters; others involve hazardous professions, crooked politicians and even the pursuit of a rare sea creature. But there is one thing that all these stories have in common: obsession. The author appears to have done a thorough job of investigating each case, including personally interviewing the key individuals. As is generally the case in such a book, some stories will appeal more to a given reader than others. This was certainly the case for me; but overall, I found the book interesting and occasionally even quite captivating. The writing style is clear, authoritative, accessible and friendly. Readers interested in a wide range of relatively recent but unusual/odd events/people are likely to appreciate this book the most.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect Airplane Read,
By
This review is from: The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (Paperback)
This is a great collection of twelve engrossing nonfiction articles. All were previously published so be warned as you may have read a few previously (I had read six of them but was pleased to revisit all). Among the most interesting were the death of a Holmes' aficionado, a talented imposter, New York's water supply, and an elderly stickup man. There is something for everyone within the collection though it skews heavily towards crime. Grann is a talented writer who respects his subjects and presents each story in an unbiased but passionate manner. The stories are perfect length for airplane reading and for picking and choosing among the topics.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
