Thoughts by Mr Creosote (26 Apr 2025) – Gamebook
The time between 1891 and 1894 – a largely undefined timeframe in the fictional Sherlock Holmes universe. Those being the years he pretended to be dead, explained by Conan Doyle only with a throwaway line upon resurrection that he “travelled the world” during his absence. Gerald Lientz, main author of the Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries, sets his story in exactly this timeframe, the only one where Watson could reasonably be accused of a crime without his friend stepping in immediately to clear his name.
It is a stroke of ingenuity in that respect, because it ensure instant engagement with the reader/player. Watson, a murderer? It cannot be! Of course, this equally makes it impossible that Lientz’s usual protagonist, Watson’s cousin, cannot be present in the story. Instead, he (fully reasonably) argues one of the previous Baker Street Irregulars has grown up to become a private detective himself. Filling another blank which Conan Doyle never much cared about.
Last, but not least, like The Adventure of the Empty House (Doyle’s triumphant “return of Sherlock Holmes” story), The Crown vs. Dr. Watson is a locked-room mystery . Even though all evidence points towards Watson, we all know it cannot be the truth. Yet, it seems impossible from the outset that any other person could have had the opportunity to commit the murder and Watson even had a strong motive. Not an easy task ahead.
In spite of everything looking very green thus far, panic sets in when the book almost immediately puts the player into a series of witness interviews. Bad memories from the previous one… though luckily, the number is limited, spanning only about half of the book at most (depending on style of play). The nature of the “impossible crime” puts some focus on the physicality of the room itself, Lientz throwing in a few red herrings in this regard which can be followed up upon quite extensively, putting some variety into the possible directions to steer the overall investigations towards.
On the other hand, even he seems bored with the questioning a bit by now. Dropping one of the strengths of his books so far, the witnesses/suspects seem rather samey in their characterization. It’s a bunch of aristocrat gentlemen with little to distinguish them. On top of that, the choices during the interviews are frequently strange: “a) Do you want to ask him about X? b) Do you not want to question him further? c) Otherwise”. What is “otherwise”? Why, it’s another question which the book just picks for you! Overall, not just in those cases, there is the feeling of all too many questions being put into the player’s mouth, in the style of: “You suddenly remember Y, so you think it might be worth asking about Z. Do you want to ask that?”
Decisions how to convince someone, what approach to take to get information out of someone, on the other hand, are rarely seen. The interview of the servant who found the body is a positive example in this regard, but it remains a singular occurrence. With one other witness, the book keeps remarking that you’ll have to be careful when questioning him, implying that he might turn impatient or angry; but he never actually does, no matter what you do.
Definitely, not all is perfect, but in the big picture, the strong increase of variety through questioning, physical investigation of several locations, a cipher riddle plus some chase action puts this book on a good entertainment level again. It is also very fair, providing several opportunities to receive essential clues through different ways. It even introduces for the first time in the series a notion of a chain of clues and deductions, some of them only becoming available through others. This leads to a couple of diverging paths through the book once more, as sorely missed last time around. And in spite of the clearly strongly increased complexity, I could not identify any inconsistencies, bugs.
It’s a bit of a pity that the identity of the real killer is actually signposted too strongly by the midpoint. The investigations following afterwards are well-defined and quite entertaining in their setup. To those who are less patient and mainly want to optimize towards a quick solution, on the other hand, they may feel superfluous. Though skipping the second half would mean missing out on a lot of the good scenes still to come. Remember: it’s not just about knowing who is the killer, but about the ability to prove it!
