Sherlock Book Reviews - The Adventure of the Coal-Tar Derivative
Posted by Steve Emecz on
Mr. Jones is the author of a number of previous books, and I’d first heard of him for his “Clive Cussler Adventures: A Critical Review”, since I’ve been a Cussler fanatic since 1980, when there were only four Cussler novels. Then Mr. Jones drifted onto my Sherlockian radar as the author of a couple of scripts for Jim French’s radio show, “The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”. It was a short jump from there to him writing Holmes short stories. Some of those, along with several new tales, are now collected in “The Adventure of the Coal-Tar Derivative”
Some of these stories have previously appeared as radio broadcasts, or (in different form) in “The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories”. My personal favorite, by far, is “Mea Gloria Fides”, which was originally presented on radio and then in an MX anthology as “A Case of Unfinished Business”. This isn’t the first story to have Holmes return to London for a short time (in disguise) after the events at Reichenbach, before setting out on his Great Hiatus to Tibet, Egypt, and so many other places. But it’s definitely the best, and the most chilling.
I hope that Mr. Jones continues to pull tales from Watson’s tin dispatch box, and I look forward to reading many more in upcoming MX anthologies, and when he has enough, to see them collected in a sequel to this volume.
The Adventure of the Coal-Tar Derivative - The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson against the Moriarties during the Great Hiatus is available from this site with a share going to our good causes and also available from:
Amazon USA Book Depository (free worldwide shipping)
Holmes and Watson's exploits during the Great Hiatus are revealed in a series of short stories and novellas. These adventures include how they separately helped stop the Moriarties from starting a world war and using a legendary stone to destroy London. Also revealed are the facts behind the Giant Rat of Sumatra and Holmes's encounter with Jack the Ripper.
Author: Steven Philip Jones
Pages: 290
ISBN: 9781787058408
Format: Paperback
Also available in Hardcover