WE’RE NO SHERLOCKS

One would think you’ve hired Inspector Lestrade as a copy editor, given the blunders in Kristine McKenna’s otherwise excellent tribute to Jeremy Brett (“Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Interpreter,” June 9).

Although Richard Burton was an excellent King Arthur, he never played the great detective, on stage, film, television or radio. Ditto for James Mason, though he was a capable Dr. Watson in “Murder by Decree,” opposite Christopher Plummer’s Holmes.

As for Brett’s wonderfully neurotic interpretation of Holmes, television audiences in both Britain and the United States first saw him in “A Scandal in Bohemia.” “The Solitary Cyclist” was the fourth episode to be aired.

It’s also inaccurate to say that Holmes took no real moral position on the crimes he solved. On the contrary, he had a strong sense of right and wrong. He merely felt that in some rare cases, the perpetrator’s acts were justified, and thus he allowed them to go undiscovered and unpunished.

BRUCE SCIVALLY

Los Angeles