The Fifth Heart: A Novel

With Simmons' current books, he is focusing on historical fiction. I always enjoy his novels for the most part. He is a great writer and I have read all his books from the early great science fiction to the hardboiled detective series (love some Joe Kurtz) to now. But his well researched settings and character minutiea are starting to get in the way of the story now. This book is kind of a mess. It starts with a narrator who switches between characters and then has the protagonist look out of the book at you!..... Really! Almost as bad as King's last Dark Tower book. When reading a story it's important to get a history of the characters and back stories, but so much superfluous details are put into this one it bogs down the plot. What little there is.
It's a interesting read but don't expect too much story with this history lesson. Try THE TERROR, THE CROOK FACTORY (highly underated), or even THE ABOMINABLE for an in depth STORY and history.

Weaving genuine historical figures into your novel has to be pure artistry. Dan Simmons has done that with almost all his novels, most recently with the 2009 novel, Drood: A Novel, the 2010 novel, Black Hills (see my review of 12/23/2010), and the 2013 novel, The Abominable (see my review of 1/08/2014). This novel is not dissimilar. Imagine writing a novel with the improbable merger of Sherlock Holmes and the great American author, Henry James attempting to solve the murder of Clover Adams, wife of historian Henry Adams. Yes, that’s from the family that produced two American presidents. Then sprinkle in Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Samuel Clemens ( Mark Twain), Theodore Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, then mention Robert Louis Stevenson and the up and coming Junior grade Brussels police inspector, Hercule Poirot. Of course President Grover Cleveland, Dr. Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle are implicated in this mystery. However the novel opens in 1893 Paris with Sherlock Holmes and Henry James about to commit suicide by simultaneously jumping into the Seine River (being there at the same time was pure happenstance). Can you swallow this story? I did with piss and vinegar (is that an idiom?). Anyway James is depressed and Sherlock is on a three year disappearance after a feigned death in a fight with Professor Moriarty (is he in this novel?... of course) in Reichenbach Falls. Sherlock tells James after their aborted suicides fail that, “I discovered, Mr. James, that I was not a real person. I am ...how would a literary person such as yourself put it? I am, the evidence has proven to me most conclusively, a literary construct. Some ink-stained scribbler’s creation. A mere fictional character.” What??

Basically there is no horse sense to this novel, it’s main function is to please the reader and it does...big time. We all know that Professor Moriarty was created to eventually kill off Sherlock and end the series. But does he ever do it. It seems Conan Doyle wants to, but doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger. Is there any real proof that Sherlock dies? I don’t think so. Dan Simmons writes this novel under the assumption that the great Sherlock Holmes lives and, in fact, arrives in Washington, D.C. to solve a possible murder not knowing whether he is real, or a fictional character. Henry James, who seemingly follows Holmes to America without any thought pattern has trepidations that he is a failed writer (thus his attempted suicide). But he is easily maneuvered into making the trip back to America. Why Sherlock doubts himself as a real person is puzzling since throughout the novel he demonstrates his brilliant mind and stealth. When they arrive in America, Sherlock briefly goes into disguise as Norwegian explorer Jan Sigerson. Sherlock’s client is the brother of the supposedly murdered Clover Adams, but soon finds out that his client has taken his own life. As a matter of fact, everyone in the novel also thinks that Clover committed suicide by drinking her photography chemicals (yucky!). Since Clover Adams’ husband Henry is away in Europe, Sherlock and Henry James stay at John (an American historian) and Clara Hay’s mansion. The Hays are neighbors of Henry Adams (an American statesman) and are also friends of Henry James. Got it so far? As soon as Sherlock unpacks, he heads into D.C. to buy cocaine and morphine. In the 1800s England, it seems like everyone was a drug addict (drinking laudanum, a liquid opium) or had gout or consumption. Anyway, he buys his drugs from some toughs and they make the mistake of trying to roll Sherlock. Ha, this part was funny.

On page 47 (you thought that I was giving up too much of the story, didn’t you?...there are 570 pages still to go) we find out about the Five of Hearts, a salon of five people: Henry and Clover Adams, John and Clara Hay and Clarence King (a famous geologist). Did the group’s elitism cause them to acquire enemies? Maybe. Sherlock suspects Clover’s recent friendship with Rebecca Lorne and Clifton Richards as dubious. Are they really anarchists? Is Clifton Richards a deadly assassin who almost killed Sherlock years ago? Is Rebecca really Clifton’s mother? As the plot thickens and the fog clears, it is apparent that President Grover Cleveland is to be assassinated at the 5/1/1893 opening of The World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Incidentally, if you are interested in that Chicago Expo, read The Devil in the White City by another favorite author, Erik Larson. It’s amazing how Dan Simmons ties historical persona and events into all his novels. If you haven’t read a Simmons novel...shame on you. If you read my reviews, you know that I’m a big fan of the three dots (a.k.a ellipsis). Regardless, Sherlock surmises that the anarchists have a list of world presidents and royalty to assassinate. Remember that President James A. Garfield was shot by ‘wacko’ Charles J. Guiteau and subsequently died in 1881 and later in 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. The late 1800s into the early 1900s were very volatile, so Sherlock might be on to something. While I just touched on the beginning of the novel, I’ll let you plow through the last 500 gripping pages or so. It’s going to be a jaunt.

And so what do I like about Dan Simmons’s novels? Well, he kinda over informs the reader like the internet’s Wikipedia. For instance I know that in 1893, Clara Hay was 44 years old when she died, Sherlock Holmes was 38 years old and taller than normal, Henry James was 50 years old and had gout, Clarence King was 5’ 6”, Henry James is 49 years old, Samuel Clemens is 57 years old, William Dean Howells is 56 years old, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr is 52 years old, Rudyard Kipling is 27 years old and Teddy Roosevelt was a stocky 5’ 8”. This information gives the reader a upgraded character discernment with a hint of the milieu during the time period. Let’s face it, back in the 1800s, if you were 5’ 10” you were considered a semi-giant. I don’t think any writer has a better handle on the reality of the times of his/her novel than Dan Simmons. But the biggest asset Simmons has is the non drowsy zone he creates. I have read at least ten Dan Simmons novels and never once did I nod off. This is one of America’s best novelist and I don’t know why this Science fiction/ horror/ fantasy writer doesn’t get his just kudos. Okay, I know he won the Hugo Award in 1989, but it's 26 years later...where is the current adulation? Do I recommend this novel? Is the Pope Catholic?

This was an amazing treat, an unexpected treasure with lots of travel through American history, using some meta ideas to tie things together. I don't normally like meta stuff, but Simmons really pulls it off - I pinky swear he does. After slogging my way through "Drood" earlier, I was almost reluctant to read "The Fifth Heart", but boy does it deliver. Any unpleasant taste that might linger around after "Drood" is completely gone, and "The Fifth Heart" is a beautiful, immersive experience. There is a convoluted and somewhat preposterous plot, as per usual, but that's just part of the game, and everything works - I was so sorry when the book ended! I wanted more. By the way, all the bizarre historical events that seem to be completely unlikely - most of them actually did happen - he so did his research. I can't recommend this enough.

PS - a lot of philosophical issues are raised along the way, so if you can talk a friend into reading this, you're all set for a month of great discussions.

Sometimes you have to fight your way through a Dan Simmons novel to get to the meat. This was no exception for me.
It was well worth it. Characters were well realized. Plot meandered here and there, but in a healthy way. Sense of place was astonishing. The Columbian Expo came to life under his pen. And a full fledged Sherlock Holmes story materialised.

Such a sad disappointment to this Holmes fan.

I've been a Sherlock Holmes devotee for decades. I've read many, many "new" Holmes stories. Some are exceptional--for example, Nicholas Meyer's "The Seven Per Cent Solution". And some aren't--like Meyer's follow-up volume "The West End Horror" of which a reviewer said that historical figures popped up throughout the story like targets in a shooting gallery.

"The Fifth Heart" was that kind of book. Sherlock Holmes plus random people from the same historical era. But without a clever plot or resolution, or people that one cares about. Is this really from the author of "Hyperion"?

I give two stars because I enjoyed Simmons' trick of having Holmes recast some of Watson's stories as far more prosaic and consistent tales. I even enjoyed his description of James' horrified reaction to reading some of the short Holmes stories.

Maybe James devotees will enjoy this more.

One night in 1893, Sherlock Holmes encounters suicidal Henry James on the Seine. Holmes distracts James from his suicide plan and convinces him to accompany him to America to solve the case of the murder of Clover Adams. From this point on, the narrative builds into a complex mystery that involves not only resolving Adams' murder, but also the question of whether or not a fictional character is "real."

I won The Fifth Heart as a GoodReads giveaway--as a fan of Conan Doyle and Henry James, I thought that I was going to be extremely critical when reading this novel. However, I was pleasantly surprised and became almost immediately engrossed in the world of the fictional Holmes and James that Simmons created.

This book is enjoyable, but somewhat long-winded, at over 600 pages, contrived, and precious (Samuel Clemens declaring that the author is now writing him out of the script?). What leapt out at me, though, were the many annoying editing errors, even though the author crows about his "obsessive" copy editor in his acknowledgements. For example, we're told that the parties get to the train station in DC early on Friday, April 29. Two chapters after that, they arrive, by train, in Chicago, early on Friday, April 29. Two more chapters, and they're deciding what to do on the weekend before the opening of the fair on Monday, May 1 - somehow April had 31 days that year. At one point, the dates skip from late March to late April, same action, then back again. The French, both James' greeting and the menu later, could be corrected by a French 101 student. The Latin is probably incorrect (I think a toast would be made "to" someone, i.e., in the Latin form/ending for the object of a preposition, not the subject of a sentence), but is to a singular friend: Henry James then wonders if the toast is for an absent friend or friends, when clearly "amicus" is singular. I won't spoil the story by revealing why it matters, but the timing of the removal of a glass, a crucial clue, is given initially correctly, but then later in a confession, alleged to be so early it would have never been reported. These are just examples, there are more. I shudder to think what the manuscript looked like originally!

After reading his Hyperion books, which I found rather confusing, I let myself be convinced by the 5 star reviewers and glad I did. Rarely a dull moment, though actual physical action is minimal. Possibly much more entertaining if you know the books of Henry James, which I do not. If you know neither James nor Holmes, you might enjoy it anyway. This author might be on his way to greatness.

Another huge disappointment from one my favorite authors. He brings nothing new to Holmes, nothing that is, that you care about. What Conan Doyle did in 50 pages, Simmons manages to not do in over 600. That's two bad ones in a row. "Abominable" was horrible, and now this. I loved "The Terror" and "Drood". Now Simmons is reaching real bad for the same formula that made those books great. "Abominable" was "The Terror" on Everest, and now this is another Victorian sleuth with a great literary character as in "Drood", but again, not as entertaining. If your going to mix horror or supernatural with history, its needs to be fresh and original. This was not.

Despite the combination of real-world historical and literary figures with fictional characters like Mr. Holmes and Holmes' stated concern that he might be only a fictional character, this is a much more straightforward mystery than you might expect. Luckily, it's a good one, and Simmons does a nice job capturing the voices of Holmes and Henry James.

Once again, Dan Simmons has written a book that draws the reader in whike teaching them about historical chracters and events. The research he must do for his books should inspire other writers. Much like Drood, this book kept me up reading and when I finalky finished, I was disappointed until I turned back to the first page . He brought to life a fictional character and a real-life writer.

In the movie 'Amadeus' Mozart asks the King of Austria what he did not like about a particular piece of music he had just performed in concert. The King replied "Too many notes." In the case of 'The Fifth Heart' there are just too many pages. 624 to be exact. Nothing wrong with that if it can hold your interest. I love long books I made it to page 300 and gave up. It was interesting in the beginning and then it became boring. Too many uninteresting and unimportant details.