BOOKS: The Hound of the Baskervilles

For some time now, I've been enjoying a podcast called The Classic Tales, featuring short stories by classic authors read by actor B.J. Harrison. He does a great job reading various stories from Poe, Hawthorne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and more. He's often inclined to the macabre, but he does others as well (like Twain's "Million Pound Bank Note", which is a fun funny story, or O. Henry's ironic classics). He's done a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and lately, he's been occasionally doing some longer works in multipart installments.

Recently, I enjoyed his presentation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Even though I'd read all the Sherlock Holmes books when I was young, I've forgotten the details, and it was quite enjoyable to "read" it again (or listen, actually). Full of Victorian charm and characters, and vivid description of the desolate moors. There are a fantastic story surrounding a suspicious death, a handful of suspicious characters all round, an escaped convict on the loose, and a mysterious stalker. Holmes wraps it up with his amazing deductive powers in classic style. Good fun.