Fiction

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
5 The Adventure of the Priory School

Jumping back to the third volume of Holmes short stories for this interesting instance: it's on my "to read" list as not being very good, because that's based on the Pocket Essentials guide and the author only rated it 2 out of 5; but when Conan Doyle listed his favourite-ever Holmes tales he placed it 10th, and the poll-of-polls I keep referring to saw readers rank it =13th. That means the wider fanbase consider it to be in the top quarter of all stories quality-wise vs Pocket Essentials dumping it in the bottom 20% — quite a disparity.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the lower score, though I don't think for the same reasons. They assert the story is "dull and goes on too long", whereas I found the bulk of it to be quite engaging, with a reasonable mystery and some decent investigating. It's the solution and ending that sits uneasily. Without giving it away, some characters' actions stretch plausibility, in my view, and the case has been more-or-less resolved before Holmes presents his solution. It's true that his presence brings someone to justice who would probably have otherwise escaped it, but all the other aspects of the resolution would have unfolded the same way without his input. It's not necessarily a 2-star story, then, but I also don't feel it's a great one.