Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

From the back cover: The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of master mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most accomplished stories. Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson confront one of their most difficult cases ever: is there truly a curse on the old Baskerville estate? Is there truly a ghostly beast lurking on the dark, eerie moors? A masterful concoction of plot and mood, this story is guaranteed to give you the shivers.

Since that doesn’t give you much, and in case you want more, this wikipedia page should give you what you need.

My thoughts: I don’t read many mysteries, so I wonder sometimes why I like books and short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes so much. A few years ago, I remember going on a binge and reading pretty much everything I had in the house that the Holmes characters was even vaguely mentioned in. In the last few months, I’ve gone out of my way to read several mysteries hoping to find something I like. I can’t say that I’ve found anything yet but I’m hopeful.

The reason I like this book so much — there’s more than a mystery here. It’s the suspense, the mood, the darkness, the setting on the moors, murder, a ghostly pack of hounds hunting individuals at night, and the possibility of death while investigating. Other mysteries have these things but somehow the parts don’t add up the same. There’s something about the way all the elements come together here that make this a perfect read. Out of all the Sherlock Holmes books on my shelf, this one always sticks out in my mind as a wonderfully chilly read that makes you want to turn on the lights while sleeping.