Scottish Book of the Week: Artie Conan Doyle and the Gravediggers’ Club
In this week’s edition of Scottish Book of the Week, we are going back in time again, to 19th century Edinburgh. The adventure story features a young Arthur Conan Doyle, before he became the great writer known for his Sherlock Holmes stories. Living in Edinburgh ourselves, this was a really fun book to read as we could picture the locations. But even if you’ve never been to Edinburgh, if you love a good mystery I’m sure you will enjoy this book.
Book Details
Title: Artie Conan Doyle and the Gravediggers’ Club
Author: Robert J. Harris
Genre: Adventure/ Mystery; Historical
Recommended reading age: 8+
Scottish Setting
It was the middle of the following afternoon and the two boys had taken refuge from the rain inside the newly opened Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art in Chambers Street. (Chapter 14)
The book is set in Edinburgh, in 1872, and features a young Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There are plenty of well known Edinburgh place names that feature in the story, including Greyfriars Kirkyard and several other Edinburgh cemeteries, Calton Hill, the Grassmarket, Morningside, Parliament Square, the ‘Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art in Chambers Street’ (now known as the National Museum of Scotland), North Bridge, Waterloo Place, Fishmarket Close, Victoria Street, Lothian Road, and Sciennes Place where the Doyles used to live. Edinburgh’s famous dog Greyfriars Bobby gets a name check too.
Plot Summary
A distant clock struck ten as two figures, a pair of twelve-year-old boys, made their way cautiously through the murk. “Arthur Conan Doyle”, declared Artie Dial. “That’s what it will say on my tombstone, Ham, my full and proper name. And underneath it will say, He achieved greatness as…as…” “As what, Artie?” asked his friend, Edward Hamilton. “I don’t know yet, Ham,” Artie confessed. “That will take a bit of finding out.” (Chapter 1)
It’s January 1872. Artie Conan Doyle and his best friend ‘Ham’ are home from boarding school for an extended Christmas holiday, while repairs are being carried out at their school following a storm. After discovering a list of graveyards in a coat pocket of the suspiciously acting lodger his parents took in, Artie convinces his friend to explore Greyfriars Kirkyard – which is top of the list – with him at night, to find out what the lodger is up to. Sneaking around Greyfriars, they encounter a ghostly ‘Lady in Grey’ and discover the footprints of a gigantic hound! Could these clues be connected? Soon Artie and Ham find themselves on the trail of the sinister Gravediggers’ Club who are carrying out a series of robberies across Edinburgh’s cemeteries, and come face to face with a villainous Colonel. Will the two friends manage to solve the mystery? And how does the lodger fit in to all of this?
Bonus Info
There’s a short quiz about the Arthur Conan Doyle at the back of the book, and some author’s notes giving more context to the historical background of the book. The story is based on fact in as much as Conan Doyle was born and raised in Edinburgh, and studied there too. However, the adventures of young ‘Artie’, which supposedly inspire his famous Sherlock Holmes detective stories later in life, are fictional. Even so, some of the events from The Gravediggers’ Club mystery mirror events in the two Sherlock Holmes novels The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles. If you are already familiar with those books, you will enjoy spotting the parallels.
Conclusion
It’s tricky summing up the plot of the book without any spoilers, as there’s nothing worse than reading a mystery when you already know how it ends, so I don’t want to say too much. But my 10 yr old and I both really enjoyed reading this mystery adventure. It is well paced, with plenty of twists and turns, and I thought it was a fun idea imagining a young Arthur Conan Doyle being inspired to write his Sherlock Holmes stories. Anyone vaguely familiar with Edinburgh will also appreciate all the local place names that pop up, which help to picture the story. But even if you’ve never been to Edinburgh before, the author does a great job of evoking the atmosphere of nineteenth century Edinburgh. If you like a good mystery adventure, then I’m sure you will love this book. It’s the first in a series, with ‘Artie Doyle and the Vanishing Dragon’ and ‘Artie Doyle and the Scarlet Phantom’ also available.
Artie Conan Doyle and the Gravediggers’ Club is available from Bookshop.UK (Affiliate Link) or you can order it from your favourite indie bookshop.
