True, his marriage is only by name, and his own wife has a female lover, but nevertheless he abandoned Holmes without giving the man the chance to make a decision. In the second story, Watson is married and has left Holmes I found this attitude of Watson a little cowardly, like he hadn’t fought enough for his love for Holmes. Holmes has also an addiction to cocaine, addiction that he uses as a shield whenever he wants to rule out something or someone, even Watson, from his mind. I didn’t feel in Holmes a struggle to admit homosexual feelings, but more a fear of opening himself to the danger of love, whatever the companion is a man or a woman. As the lady suggests, maybe Holmes is not aware of Watson’s love, but for sure he is dependent from Watson to an emotional level that is even deeper than a simply love relationship.

The novel is told from Watson’s point of view and is the account of two of their adventures in the first one Holmes and Watson are living together and when investigating in a case Watson has the chance to meet with a lady who shares with him some “particular” interests the lady’s assumption is that Holmes and Watson are a couple in life as they are in career, but Watson will confess that his is an unrequited love, and that Holmes is unaware of Watson’s preferences. Actually I have two thoughts in mind upon finishing this book: one is that both movie than book have to be very accurate to the original characters since they share so much in common that only having the same origins can explain that, or second hypothesis is that maybe the screenwriters were aware of the existence of My Dearest Holmes and instilled some of their characteristics into the movie characters. Elisa_rolle First of all you have to consider that this novel was released in 1988, so well ahead of the movie on Sherlock Holmes and James Watson that so openly suggested that the relationship between the two had a sexual undercurrent.

My Dearest Holmes by Rohase Piercy