Creativity often means juxtaposing unlike objects or ideas to see what new insights might arise at the intersection, so the notion of a Christian devotional inspired and clarified by a beloved fictional detective is initially intriguing. (I'm very familiar with both the Holmes stories and the Bible).
The author (Trisha Priebe) does indeed go back and forth between excerpts from Holmes and references from the Bible, but I'm not sure it works completely, mostly because you could remove either piece and the other would still work for the devoted reader.
For example, the first pairing presents this quote from A Study in Scarlet - "There is nothing like firsthand evidence" - alongside the author's observation that the Bible is full of exhortations to know God personally, and use prayer and Bible reading to gather facts in order to increase this knowledge.
Well yes, but no new light comes from joining those two. Holmes is talking about knowing from physical evidence, and the Bible about knowing from religious evidence. The connection is minor. They stay separate. I found no new insight by combining them. You could take the Holmes quote/discussion out altogether and the treatment of knowing God would still make the same kind of sense without gaining or losing value. Interesting idea, but doesn't work for me.
Three stars out of five.
I obtained a free copy of this book in return for a review. The image above links to the book's Amazon page.
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