Library Journal Review: Starred Review. As all Sherlockians know, in 1906 Arthur Conan Doyle took on the case of George Edalji, a reserved young lawyer, half Scottish and half Indian, who was wrongly accused of mutilating animals?and in the process helped set up Britain's Court of Appeals. Perhaps it is not so surprising that the author of Flaubert's Parrot would choose to reconstruct not just this case but the lives of both participants; what is surprising is the almost deadpan way he does it?and that his approach works so well. Barnes tells the life stories of Arthur and George with almost clinical precision, alternating between them from school age on. The storm gathers slowly; one learns the details of the mutilations and how the case was built so incongruously against the upright and deeply myopic George, even as Arthur is whiling away his time as famed writer and romancer of Miss Jean Leckie. The book picks up like a whirlwind when Arthur and George meet at last; and though a few early passages can seem a bit leisurely, it finally make powerful sense to see how these men arrived where they did. A beautifully modulated work; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/05.]?Barbara Hoffert,Library Journa.?Barbara Hoffert,Library Journal Copyright ? Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.