News — book review

"Synopsis: The Dean of a Swiss university persuades Sherlock Holmes to investigate the background of a would-be lecturer. To Dr. Watson it seems a very humdrum commission - but who is the mysterious ‘Lieserl’? How does her existence threaten the ambitions of the technical assistant level III in Room 86 at the Federal Patents Office in Berne by the name of Albert Einstein? The assignment plunges Holmes and Watson into unfathomable Serbia to solve one of the intractable mysteries of the 20th Century. In Tim Symonds’ previous detective novels, Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer At Scotney Castle and Sherlock...

"All Sherlockians are intrigued by the titles of Watson’s unrecorded cases. They are also disappointed by Watson’s failure to flesh them out. In the "Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore" author Dan Andriacco gives the reader a modernist version of that story. Mr. Arthur James Phillimore, a multi-millionaire goes missing. The team of McCabe & Cody go searching for him. Along the way to solving this modern mystery, they encounter a Phillimore pastiche, a story-within-the -story, which fills in Watson’s lacuna. In this smoothly written tale Andriacco does not imitate Doyle’s style at all. It takes place in our times. But...

"Calvert Markham has provided the foreword for The Holmes Sutra: A Birthday Gift for Sherlock Holmes as He Turns 160 by Jayantika Ganguly (MX Publishing; www.mxpublishing.co.uk), a charming and entertaining collection of observations drawn from apocryphal sources as well as from the canon. I particularly like ‘Sherlock Holmes is more than just a man– he is a just man’ and ‘The canon is real and true –though not always accurate’. As an appendix there’s a questionnaire to enable you to gauge your Holmes Mania Quotient. (I apparently am ‘Holmesick’…)” The Holmes Sutra is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping...

"David Marcum’s good collection The Papers of Sherlock Holmes has deservedly done well, and MX Publishing has taken the bold step of issuing his novel Sherlock Holmes & a Quantity of Debt as a hardback original (www.mxpublishing.co.uk). The title, taken fromGreat Expectations, hints at a Dickensian flavour in this account of the investigation of a crime apparently committed half a  century before. There’s a grand gothic atmosphere, and it’s a pleasure to find Inspector Alec MacDonald among the main characters.” Sherlock Holmes and A Quantity of Debt is available from all good bookstores including  Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository. In ebook...

"Dan Andriacco’s new novel brings Sebastian McCabe, Jeff Cody and Lynda Teal from Erin, Ohio to London. McCabe has been challenged to a debate, Holmes vs Dupin; Jeff and Lynda are on their honeymoon, but they’re inevitably drawn in when a distinguished Holmesian collector disappears. His name is James Phillimore, and he vanishes in just the way that his fictional namesake did, stepping back into his house to retrieve his umbrella. Perhaps for the first time, Sebastian McCabe finds himself up against a truly deadly enemy, one who sees himself as a real-life Moriarty. The book actually gives us two...