The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Brian M.
7th grade
Van Antwerp Middle school

A classic book I liked a lot was The Hound of the Baskervilles, a Sherlock Holmes' book by Arthur Conan Doyle. You may have seen the tape of it on television, but the book is much than any of them that I've ever seen. It isn't slow moving with hundreds of pages of what everyone is thinking, and everyone's relations with everyone else, dating back to childhood like some classics I've read, but moves very quickly and clearly through what is happening. It goes fast enough that Doyle has only had three books about Sherlock Holmes which haven't been compilations of short stories, but then again, much more happened in this book than in them. In this book a legend about a curse placed on a rich family hundreds of years ago is called to Mr. Holmes' attention when the eldest family member and his next of kin are found chewed to bit sin a swamp on the family's estate, apparently by a dog, but, judging by the tooth marks, a larger dog than could possibly exist. Busy already on another case, Holmes sends his associate, Watson [from whom's point of view the story is narrated], to investigate. On arrival, Watson meets an extremely peculiar collector of butterflies who knows his way through the swamp better than anyone else, but who seems incapable of causing anyone harm. When Watson investigates the scene of the crime, all he finds is a pair of incredibly large paw-prints, halting several feet away from the corpses, and a ripped-up letter which says "meet me in the swamp at 8" and the rest illegible. Staying the night, he hears an unearthly howling, and sees a flashlight coming from a set of bushes. When he goes to investigate, however, he finds nothing there. The ending is surprising, and quite enjoyable, but if you want to know what it is, you'll have to read the book.

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