The Highest form of flattery

I just finished reading Brimstone, one of the Special Agent Pendergast series from Preston and Child.

I found myself drawn to write about it because the authors include An Aside to the Reader at the end of the book in which they admit to using a character from a novel written in 1860. What amuses me to no end is that in acknowledging this character, they fail to mention that for most readers my age and older, the allure of this series is the fact that Agent Pendegrast is a bold revisiting of a character who first appeared in 1887 [According to the Wikipedia article, that is--Ed.]: None other than the occupant of 221B Baker street himself.

Pendergast's deductive reasoning, his constant ability to be one step ahead of everyone (including, on occasion, this humble reader), his diction and his mannerisms all smack of Watson's senior partner to me. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. The books are all great fun, albeit more gruesome than Arthur Conan Doyle's work.