The Final Problem

I thought The Final Problem (English publication day February 10, 2026) by Arturo Pérez-Reverte was an interesting take on a locked-room mystery in the vein of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, without most of the racism, and instead focused on the actor who played Sherlock Holmes to be the sleuth. It was originally published in Spanish in 2023.

Set in 1960, and told from the perspective of Ormond Basil, an aging British actor who had acted the part of Sherlock Holmes in several movies, he, along with a director friend and his girlfriend, a famous soprano, are stranded at a hotel on a fictional small island off of the coast of Greece because of a bad storm that prevents ships from reaching there.

The hotel is run by a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, and also present are the 2-3 staff members and a handful of guests–a couple of British women on holiday, a married German couple, a Spanish writer of mysteries, and a Turkish doctor.

When one of the British women turns up dead, apparently a suicide, and the doctor who examined her is also killed, the Spanish writer and Ormond team up to try to investigate with the skills they have. Will they figure it out before more are killed? Is the killer toying with them?

I enjoyed the setting, and the name-dropping insider information Basil had of old, classic Hollywood and its stars. I thought the mystery was satisfying–I didn’t figure it out ahead of time. There was some anti-fatness in the description of the German man and how Basil had an instant dislike of him (because of his body characteristics), which was in character for an actor of the time, but still unnecessary. Overall would recommend for fans of historical mystery or Sherlock Holmes.