The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1902): SPOILER Episode 52

“Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

This week we’re reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mystery ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ and in a strange twist of events Rachael arrives underprepared while Paul has conducted extensive research! Rachael confesses that she left it until the last minute to read the book but attributes her mixed reaction to years of watching film and TV adaptations of this story which have drained away the element of surprise. Andy, a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, explains why a mystery with such a disappointing ending still stands out among Conan Doyle’s canon and Paul coerces everyone into admitting that Sherlock Holmes is a bit of a git. Andy recreates his experience of visiting 221B Baker Street and what a disappointment it was meeting the “real” Dr. Watson, while Rachael wonders whether a demon dog is any more cause for “brown trousers time” than a regular dog that still goes for your throat. And just what is a Grimpen Mire? Paul, of all people, has looked it up!

Elsewhere, Rachael looks at some of literature’s greatest haunted houses, including ‘Jane Eyre’s Thornfield Hall, ‘The Woman in Black’s Eel Marsh House and Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher.

This week’s scale: As dapper as a deerstalker or As stinky as a pipe filled with shag tobacco that’s been left to rot in the Grimpen Mire