Review of The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume One and Two

“This hardback edition, published in 2014, combines two earlier collections. Volume I consists of traditional pastiches, ranging from the faintly comic to the genuinely tragic, and even including a case-within-a-case. All the stories are cleverly plotted and very much in Conan Doyle’s own style. The latter tales are more ambitious, in that they begin during the period of Holmes’ supposed “retirement,” when (at his brother Mycroft’s urging) he worked to counter German espionage prior to World War I, as recounted by Doyle in “His Last Bow.“ That poignant case was hardly Holmes’ last bow for David Marcum. With remarkable originality, he sets his next two stories in the 1920s, when Holmes and Watson find themselves visiting Marcum’s own ancestors in east Tennessee. Fine as these stories are in their own right, even more valuable for Sherlockian scholars is the skillful way that Marcum (in this volume and its recent successor, Tangled Skeins) fleshes out the bare chronology of Baring-Gould’s Sherlock of Holmes of Baker Street with biographical detail, offering a fascinatingly complete picture of the lives of Holmes and Watson, from before their first meeting until the doctor’s death in 1929. Even readers who wrongheadedly regard the Canon as detective fiction will find The Papers of Sherlock Holmes well worth investigating.” Reviewed by Thomas A. Turley, author of "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Tainted Canister” The Papers of Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 and 2 Hardback Edition is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK,Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .