A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005)

"Cullin is an unusually sophisticated theorist of human nature, and this book is first and foremost an analysis of Holmes - both as a fictional character and as an embodiment of the human drive to make fictions. The multilayered fictiveness of Cullin's Holmes (a character in a novel about the "real life" of a famous fictional character who often worked in disguise) suggests that his identity - and by extension, identity itself - is a thing wrought collaboratively, by many hands, over time. . . As the conclusion of this beautiful novel makes plain, lives aren't like cases or, for that matter, like narratives. They are never solved or resolved: they just one day come to an end."
- New York Times Book Review (Dan Chiasson)

"This is a lovely, tenderhearted book, full of reserve, good manners, elegance of feeling. It's what a novel should be. You don't read it to be improved but for the plain joy of seeing what the language can do in the hands of an affectionate, very accomplished writer."
- The Washington Post (Carolyn See)

"A multi-faceted, sympathetic portrait of a great man, the kind of memoir that any of us would be honored to have - and it doesn't matter at all that Sherlock Holmes was never a real person. The psyche and its lessons are all the same, and Cullin has captured them brilliantly."
- Detroit Free Press (Marta Salij)

"A Slight Trick of the Mind proceeds in a circling, unchronological manner that would have driven its subject mad with impatience, but so be it. Most of us are not cold, precise or impervious to the softer passions Cullin evokes so stealthily and to such final, piercing effect.... A Slight Trick of the Mind may not be quite so dangerously potent (as a glass armonica), but the spell it casts lingers as persistently as the armonica's strange, mournful tones."
- Salon (Laura Miller)

"Cullin's compassionate work happily reveals the detective to be a man after all. In short, while the book wears the garb of another Holmes adventure, Cullin's tale is a wise and touching examination of the human condition."
- Los Angeles Times Book Review (Leslie S. Klinger)

"Conan Doyle used to complain, perhaps with some degree of jealousy, that most people believed Holmes was a real person and he was only the stenographer. Cullin, a gifted poet and novelist, takes that confusion and turns it into the highest level of art."
- Chicago Tribune (Dick Adler)

"The Holmes of (A Slight Trick of the Mind is a much diminished figure and also an affecting one.... (A) touching picture of a once-great man now in old age, his powers declining, his beliefs - his world - crumbling. For all his genius, he realizes, the one thing he has never understood is love."
- The New York Times (Charles McGrath)

"Ultimately, A Slight Trick of the Mind reaffirms the idea of Holmes as independent, a figure outside his creator's mind. Still, if this is not Conan Doyle's Holmes, the strength of the novel is that he remains Holmes just the same. Using the original character as a starting point, Cullin opens up a whole new territory, a three-dimensional life. In the process, he has produced a vivid portrait of an icon at twilight, his prodigious logic, finally, no match for the mysteries of the world."
- Newsday (David L. Ulin)

"(A) wonderfully written and heartbreaking study of the detective at 93 as he wrestles with the gradual fading of his memory and mental powers."
- San Francisco Chronicle (David Lazarus)

"(Mitch) Cullin ends this perfectly conceived and executed narrative with a compelling picture of the ultimate rationalist a stranger and afraid, alone in a fragmenting world he is powerless to remake. It's a haunting variation on the image of Holmes approaching retirement that lends an autumnal glow to the later Conan Doyle stories, and it makes for an exquisite, immensely satisfying novel."
- The Washington Times (Bruce Allen)

"Quite extraordinary.... A Sherlockian might call (A Slight Trick of the Mind) revisionist, in that we learn among other things that Holmes always called his friend John, never Watson, that he smoked cigars almost exclusively and didn't much care for a pipe. More to the point, Cullin shows us this master of observation, this supreme rationalist, at a time when age has made great inroads upon his memory and mental acuity. The narrative moves through time, and our heroŅour eternal heroŅhas never been more heroic, or more human."
- The Village Voice (Lawrence Block)

"Mitch Cullin, a multitalented writer, has written a unique treatment of literature's best-known detective, Sherlock Holmes. Cullin reimagines the classic character, watching him react to the natural changes brought on by age.... This is unusual in the sense that it shows Holmes facing not only his own mortality but the fact that he genuinely sees the world in a different light."
- Desert News (Dennis Lythgoe)

"In this intricate, absorbing and mysterious novel Mitch Cullin raises Sherlock Holmes from the dead so persuasively that I was startled to recall the great detective had never existed outside the covers of a book. A Slight Trick of the Mind is a wonderful homage to Conan Doyle and a wonderful novel in its own right."
- Margot Livesey, Banishing Verona: A Novel

"Mitch Cullin has written a loving, sad tale of Sherlock Holmes in the era of Hiroshima, a Holmes who is not entirely sure of his powers, but who has come into his own humanity. When I was a child I believed that Holmes was a real person. After reading A Slight Trick of the Mind, I know he is."
- Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

"(Mitch) Cullin follows Holmes through three intertwined narratives.... and in the process brings him fully to life, creating a beautiful and humane - if tragic - character, where Conan Doyle gave us little more than an admirable machine."
- The Elegant Variation (Mark Sarvas)

"What a pleasure it was to re-enter Sherlock Holmes' world, and find the aged detective as intelligent and observant as I'd remembered. In Mitch Cullin's imagination, however, Holmes is more pensive and wistful - more human - than ever before. A Slight Trick of the Mind is an elegant meditation on memory and mortality, brilliantly conceived and beautifully written, full of subtlety and wisdom and grace."
- Karl Iagnemma, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction

"Yes, it's a novel about Sherlock Holmes, but it's oh so much more than that, delving into weighty subjects as fading memory, unrequited love and painful grief with aplomb and insight. Beautiful writing and a deft touch elevates this book a long way past pastiche into something wholly of its own kind."
- Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind (Sarah Weinman)

"(The) extra layer of realistic complexity makes Cullin's immensely moving seventh outing one of the best of all Holmes pastiches.... A talented writer's bold step forward."
- Kirkus Review

"Cullin has produced an ambitious, beautifully written novel that examines an enfeebled but still intellectually curious Holmes as he copes with the indignities of old age.... This look at Holmes near his natural death is a delight and a deeply satisfying read."
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Under Cullin's sure hand, the vibrant, assured detective we know gives way to a man who looks back with regret at missed opportunities in a manner that makes the larger-than-life figure surprisingly human."
- Booklist (Stephanie Zvirin)

"The prose mirrors Holmes's preference for the intellectual over the emotional, lending it a slightly detached, considered air. Still, what unfolds is an often moving meditation on memory and loss."
- Out (Chelsey Johnson)

"Inventive and thoroughly satisfying."
- Texas Monthly (Mike Shea)

"The emotional life of Sherlock Holmes is finally plumbed in this absorbing tale, set in 1947. It's a story within a story, on the one hand addressing Holmes' aging faculties and diminishing physical capacities, and on the other recounting - via a secreted manuscript - an abiding infatuation from earlier in the detective's career."
- January Magazine (J. Kingston Pierce)

"Nonagenarian Holmes reappears, most appealingly, in Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind. He is frail and forgetful but still observant and capable of shining the bright light of his insight and brilliance on events both past and present.... Cullin has carefully woven three stories together and managed it so neatly that no threads show - worthy of Holmes himself."
- Amazon.com (Valerie Ryan)

"This well-written novel reveals Sherlock Holmes in a totally different light - a man struggling with his past, his emotions, and his rapidly fading mental keenness. Awesome!"
- The May 2005 Book Sense Picks (Linda Grana)

"Subtle and utterly absorbing. Cullin's evocative prose is matched by an extraordinary fineness of imagination; the novel is as compelling as it is unexpected. A beautiful meditation on the final days of a great (fictional) man."
- John Barlow, Eating Mammals

"Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind. Cullin, whose novel Tideland is being turned into a film by Terry Gilliam, may have written the best of this new batch (of Sherlock Holmes novels), imagining a 93-year-old Holmes traveling in post-WWII Japan while trying to hold on to his greatest asset: his mind."
- E! Online

"What Cullin is after is something more profound - an exploration of a brilliant mind at the end of a long life."
- Baltimore Sun (Michael Shelden)

"(A) refreshingly inventive novel.... Cullin skillfully blends three distinct story lines and time periods while offering a fresh perspective on the Holmes legend."
- Library Journal (Laurel Bliss)

"Cullin is a quietly powerful writer, and his subtle language nicely mirrors Holmes' state of mind in life's twilight. Moody and serene, the novel is infused by a poetic sense of grief and regret."
- The Daily Camera (Clay Evans)

"The tale told here is far more complex than anything penned by Holmes' creator, yet there seems to be little for Sherlockian purists to grouse about. Cullin's extensive research has paid off in capturing the language and the bearing of Sherlock Holmes, without confining him to the role of the great detective. Even for people who have never read a Sherlock Holmes tale, A Slight Trick of the Mind will stand alone as an enjoyable reading experience."
- Edge Provincetown (Jay Laird)

"(A Slight Trick of the Mind) makes Mr. Cullin's Holmes more credible, gives him some flesh and blood."
- Dallas Morning News (Jerome Weeks)

"A brilliant new novel.... (A) challenging look at aging from the perspective of a man used to relying entirely on all his faculties.... Cullin makes Holmes more human and a much more universal character than ever before."
- Pages (John Hogan)

"Cullin brings years of Holmesian interest and a quiet, powerful prose style to this novel. In it, he undertakes the daunting task of humanizing Holmes, which is, of course, not an easy task. But he does so by unmanning him, by subtly, slowly severing Holmes from the faculties that gave him such power as a character. It's a fascinating experiment with an impeccable pedigree, and yet another reminder that derivative fiction may indeed claim the high ground."
- The Angry Column (Rick Kleffel)

"Cullin's intricately plotted and quietly written novel achieves the power of the dead whispering to us in our dreams.... A Slight Trick of the Mind reads much like a novel by Henry James. It is a piercing observation of intellect and frailty, one seemingly unstoppable, the other actually unstoppable."
- Metro Santa Cruz (Rick Kleffel)

"Cullin's is perhaps the most human Holmes to grace the printed page, and is certainly one of the most satisfying... a poignant reflection on the nature of aging that transcends the Holmes genre while remaining thematically faithful to it."
- Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Geoffrey Campbell)

"We loved Holmes' adventures but are not the sort of zealots who would scour this novel for errors or liberties taken. It doesn't deserve that, for it's a hauntingly authentic portrayal of the great detective as a fragile old man."
- The Arizona Republic (Anne Stephenson)

"To think of Holmes coming to terms with emotional truths after a life-time of chasing intellectual ones makes for a deeply interesting novel."
- Santa Cruz Sentinel

"As an elegy for human contacts squelched and put away - and a tribute to forgiveness, no matter how delayed - A Slight Trick of the Mind is an achievement."
- The Advocate (Anne Stockwell)

"There is no denying the sure and skillful way Cullin manages the ambitiously complicated strands of his story, the obvious purpose of which is to explicate the secret life of a dedicated rationalist who has lived into an era too complicated to be reduced, by sheer thinking, into a state of orderliness... A Slight Trick of the Mind is by far the most sophisticated of all Sherlock Holmes pastiches."
- South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Chauncey Mabe)

"(A) Slight Trick of the Mind paints a convincing portrait of a real-life Sherlock Holmes.... Along the way, Cullin introduces such subjects as the healthful properties of royal jelly, the glass armonica, the horrors of war, and the trackless country of the human heart."
- The Santa Fe New Mexican (Craig Smith)

"Cullin does justice to Doyle's work of genius, with the added impact of presenting Sherlock Holmes in his twilight years. A Slight Trick of the Mind is an exceptional read from an exceptional talent."
- Bookloons (J. A. Kaszuba Locke)

"Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind is not a Holmes pastiche in the usual sense of the term.... this book was a thoughtful change from the vast number of books set during Holmes's prime."
- The MT. Void (Evelyn C. Leeper)

"Beautiful, poignant and very sad. A Slight Trick of the Mind retains enough of Holme's remarkable powers to delight his many dedicated fans. But there is such exquisite writing, moving introspection and gentle ruminations about the vagaries of memory loss to draw in every reader who has a heart."
- Bookreporter.com (Kate Ayers)

"Mitch Cullin's extraordinarily well-written meditation on the great Conan Doyle character and Victorian icon Sherlock Holmes...It's remarkable that a novel about a character invented by another writer could feel so utterly real....Holmes' struggles with his memory and diminishing physical powers, as well as his very human inability to comprehend the world, are beautifully rendered."
-- L.A. Weekly (Brendan Bernhard)

"Over the years, enough of these Holmes pastiches have been written to fill a library, but few are equal in originality or quality to A Slight Trick of the Mind, Mitch Cullin's fine novel."
-- The Flint Journal (Tom Powers)

"The main character of this poignant novel could have been anyone, and not necessarily the exacting detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle, because Mitch Cullin has woven a universal story rich with emotion. As we wade through Holmes's past while he contemplates roads taken and those sadly bypassed, it is all too clear that his struggles and fears are also ours."
-- The Boston Globe (Rochelle O'Gorman)

"A book to savor."
-- AudioFile

"The imagined life of Sherlock Holmes is an endlessly fascinating topic for enthusiasts and mystery nerds alike, but Cullin's novelized look at the end of the great detective's life transcends the genre and will definitely appeal to all tastes."
-- The L Magazine

"Mitch Cullin's fine new novel...A story as eerily moving as it is unconventional."
-- The Banner (Philip Christman)

"By far the best of (the pastiches) is Cullins' Sherlock Holmes, who is a frail, forgetful but brilliant 93."
-- The Hindu Times (Pradeep Sebastian)

"In this stunningly original novel that nevertheless falls in the vicinity of such deja-vu fictive reconstructions as Michael Cunningham's The Hours (2000) and Colm Toibin's The Master (2004), Mitch Cullin brings back to life a Sherlock Holmes who, at ninety-three, is more wistfully thoughtful --more Joseph Conrad's "one of us"--than ever before."
--Magill Book Reviews (Richard Hauer Costa)

"All the great books are about loss, and A Slight Trick of the Mind is no different."
--The Hudson Review (Susan Balee)

"A Slight Trick of the Mind is in no way a crime novel but rather a moving account of a man taking stock of his life while dealing with old age, hit-and-miss memory, and a changing world."
--Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (Jon L. Breen)

"A Slight Trick of the Mind is a moving depiction not only of aging and age-related mental changes but also of the reflective nature of old age. It is beautifully written, with many poetic passages, even about seemingly ordinary things, such as harvesting honey."
--Psychiatric Services (Richard Balon, M.D.)