An Unfinished Novel

Recently I got my hands on a Sherlock Holmes novel that I'd been wanting to read for a long time. A friend with great literary taste (she likes my work) loved it, so I expected to love it, too. But I didn't.

In fact, I so didn't love the book that I stopped reading it in the middle of a chapter, on page 136 out of 617, hating myself for wasting even that much time on it. Why didn't I like it? For one thing, the once-shocking trope that almost everything Watson wrote was untrue has become trite. But the breaking point for me was when Sherlock Holmes killed in cold blood. Sherlock did that, but Holmes never would.

Has this ever happened to you - a book you had reason to look forward to (especially a mystery or a Holmes adventure) so disappointed you that you couldn't even soldier on through to the end?