Fiction

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
7 The Adventure of the Three Gables

And here is the other single-star Holmes story, and the one that also comes bottom of the poll-of-polls I've referenced in the past. They're both late-era tales, collected in the final volume of short stories — that volume seems to be regarded as the weakest overall, although the Pocket Essentials guide still gives half its stories 4+ stars.

But this is entirely deserving of its low standing. It's not entirely without merit — there's the odd good line — but it's also pretty racist (not in a cruel way, but horrendously casually); and even if you're someone who can accept that as being "of its time", much of the writing is weak or outright poor (I can't quite tell if Holmes is behaving out of character, or if Doyle's conception of Holmes's behaviour just changed a lot down the decades).

The villain's convoluted plot is also thoroughly daft considering the goal they were trying to achieve. That said, it's the kind of dumb decision people make in real-life that comes across as dumb in fiction because we're not making ill-informed decisions in the heat of the moment. But really, as Holmes seems to think highly of the mastermind's intellect, you'd expect them to have come up with a sensible course of action.

As for my goals, that's the two very worst canon stories out of the way. I'll have to think about where to go next — possibly to divisive stories: there are a couple that came at the bottom of the poll-of-polls but Pocket Essentials gives four stars; and, vice versa, one they give two stars is =13th in the poll, and was also in Conan Doyle's personal top ten. Intriguing.