‘The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb' Re-Imagined
One morning a young hydraulic engineer, Mr. Victor
Hatherley, visits Dr Watson’s surgery requiring medical attention as his thumb
has been severed during a murderous attack. Watson dresses the wound and then
takes his patient around to Baker Street to consult with Sherlock Holmes, who
makes sense of the strange happenings upon hearing the engineer’s story, but is
unable to apprehend the criminals.
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| “He unwound the handkerchief, and held out his hand.” |
Sherlock Holmes outside London
The Great Detective is closely associated with his
London residence at 221B Baker Street, which he shared at times with Dr John Watson.
And while many cases investigated by Sherlock Holmes take place in the greater metropolitan
area, a good number of investigations, some of which begin in London, lead
Holmes and Watson further afield. Perhaps the most famous of these
latter cases is that re-told in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ which largely
takes place in Dartmoor, in the southwestern English county of Devon. Those not
familiar with English geography can check out this map. Other locations
in the canon include the English counties of Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex,
Yorkshire, Kent, and Cornwall, as well as the country of Switzerland, where
Holmes purportedly lost his life doing battle with Professor Moriarty. The
action of the current story, ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’, primarily
occurs in the fictional village of Eyford, which is said to be located a few
miles from my current home town of Reading, in the Royal County of Berkshire,
England. The final Sherlock Holmes story published by Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The
Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place’, also takes place not far from my home in
Berkshire.
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| “A house on fire.” |
As a result of all the travelling to the
countryside to investigate cases, a number of illustrations depict Holmes and
Watson on board a train or at the station. This includes the iconic photo of
Holmes and Watson discussing the murder of Charles McCarthy while sitting in a
train carriage on their way to Herefordshire, as recounted in ‘The Boscombe
Valley Mystery’ (see my post from March 22nd). A quite similar
illustration of Holmes and Watson also appears in ‘The Adventure of Silver
Blaze’. Other stories in which Holmes is depicted as either travelling by train
or at the station upon arrival or departure include: ‘The Adventure of the
Navel Treaty’, ‘The Final Problem’ and ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’, which
I hope will be the next story published in the Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series. In ‘The Adventure of the
Engineer’s Thumb’, Sidney Paget also chose to illustrate Holmes, Watson, their
client Victor Hatherley, as well as Inspector Bradstreet and a plain-clothes
officer from Scotland Yard on the platform at Eyford Station. As far as
rendering this illustration in LEGO® (see photo above), the challenge was to
depict the large column of smoke rising up in the distance behind some trees.
This was achieved by using a couple of stacks of white ice cream scoops
which appear in a large number of LEGO® minifigure sets.
Can I see more information about your book series?
All 12 books in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Re-Imagined book series, as well as a complete collector’s edition incorporating all of the stories, are available for purchase on Amazon UK, the Book Depository (with free worldwide delivery), and the MX Publishing website.
LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of Companies. The LEGO Group has not been involved in nor has it in any other way licensed or authorized the publication of this book series.
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