Another one from the attic; I have no memory of having read this before.
It is quite a clever novel, written by an academic psychologist, featuring, inter alia, Freud, Sherlock Holmes and Watson and the eponymous Emily V, a victim (is there an intended pun here?) of pretty appalling sexual abuse by her guardian whom she has killed in a struggle on an Alpine mountain.
She is disturbed enough by this to consult Freud, whose lectures on her form on early part of the book. The man’s significant role for the foreign office triggers Holmes to be sent to investigate the death. This is all very clever and the pastiches both of Freud and Dr Watson’s chronicle of the investigation are very good.
The plot falls away a bit at the end, as if perhaps the underlying idea had been exhausted but this is a pretty good and different book.
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