original novel but found the climax "unequal to the reputations of both characters" and found Watson to be "acutely missed." Publishers Weekly said that "Meyer's casual plotting (piggybacking on the over-familiar Phantom outline) sinks on occasion into travelogue and affords Holmes little opportunity to flex his deductive muscles" but "overall, Meyer treats his readers to a lively and entertaining, if undemanding ride." Allusions to other works In the prologue, Meyer refers to the "Baring-Gould papers" as having caused a resumption of interest in Holmes' life, and Meyer includes several allusions to William S. Baring-Gould's works. At the end of the novel, Holmes implies that he and Adler consummated their relationship in Montenegro; this seems to be a reference to Baring-Gould's theory that Nero Wolfe was the love child of Holmes and Adler from an affair they had in Montenegro in 1892. Holmes' undercover name, Sigerson, is both a reference to Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Empty House" where Holmes uses that name, and Baring-Gould's Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, where Holmes' father's name was Siger. Raoul compares Holmes to Auguste Dupin, a comparison which causes Holmes some offense. Watson had also compared Holmes to Dupin in A Study in Scarlet, with similar results. The Marquis de St.-Evremonde, the descendant of Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette from A Tale of Two Cities, is among the guests of the Paris Opera. In the novel's afterword, Meyer acknowledges the two most obvious influences, Conan Doyle's vast Sherlockian opus and Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, which Meyer terms an "absurdist masterpiece". Release details 1993, USA, W W Norton , Pub date 20 September 1993, hardback (First edition) 1995, USA, W W Norton , Pub date ? March 1995, paperback See also "The Adventure of the Deptford Horror" References 1993 American novels Sherlock Holmes novels Sherlock Holmes pastiches The Phantom of the Opera Crossover novels Novels by Nicholas Meyer Fiction set in 1912 W. W. Norton & Company books