Texas-raised MITCH CULLIN has taken a lion-in-winter approach to the Sherlock Holmes myth, portraying the legendary sleuth as a beekeeping retiree drifting into the mists of forgetfulness on his Sussex Downs estate in A SLIGHT TRICK OF THE MIND (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). And he’s done so in an elegantly entertaining fashion, triangulating his book between Holmes’s daily domestic concerns, a visit to post–World War II Japan, and a manuscript written by the man himself about a mystery from his heyday as an investigator. Cullin shrewdly employs young Roger, the housekeeper’s son, as the device to tie the narrative together and lead it to a brilliant conclusion. Inventive and thoroughly satisfying.
