News — book review

“The title of The 1895 Murder by Dan Andriacco (MX Publishing, www.mxpublishing.co.uk; £9.99/$16.95/€12.99) refers neatly to a play based on ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans’, written by Professor Sebastian McCabe of St Benignus College, Erin, Ohio. As he proved in No Police Like Holmes and Holmes Sweet Holmes, Mac is a devoted Sherlockian and a highly skilled detective, so when a man is shot dead outside the theatre where he’s playing Mycroft Holmes, he and his brother-in-law Jeff Cody are pleased to help find the killer. Well, mostly. Jeff‘s mind, naturally, is on his impending wedding and the need for diplomacy with...

“Very few writers have tried to imagine what sort of things Holmes got up to, and what sort of people he met during his years living as the disaffected Irish-American, Altamont. He began his ‘pilgrimage’ in Chicago, so it’s natural that he would run into Diamond Jim Colosimo’s criminal organisation and encounter one of its youngest members, Al Capone. Natural too that he would visit the Café de Champion on West 31st Street, to meet its famous owner, Jack Johnson, the first black world heavyweight champion. The great boxer is actually the central character in a powerful novel, Anomalous: The...

“This is a first novel by an author new to Sherlockian fiction.  The presentation of Holmes and Watson is a bit different than is common in such works, but it does seem more sensible than others, both in the Canon and in the many pastiches available.  Holmes and Watson disagree and argue and look at the world quite differently than as we are accustomed to view them.  On the other hand, the world inhabited by this Holmes and Watson is quite different from that of the Canon and most pastiches.  It is a complex, gritty and more realistic world where...

“Recensione ‘Sherlock Holmes e i tesori di Londra’ di Tracy Revels Pubblicato da Stefania Auci Cari lettori, è stato pubblicato dalla Gargoyle Books un romanzo particolare, che ha tutti i numeri per diventare una perfetta lettura estiva, un mash up in cui trovano posto il voodoo, l’Inghilterra vittoriana, fate, fantasmi e una meravigliosa storia di amicizia. Protagonisti? Sherlock Holmes e John Watson. Questo volume, pubblicato in inglese con il titolo di Shadowfall, è stato seguito da un secondo, Shadowblood, pubblicato in Gran Bretagna a marzo 2012, dalle tinte più gotiche e dark e ambientata nel mondo della stregoneria. Personalmente, sono curiosa di leggere questo secondo volume poiché il primo mi ha intrigato...

“This is a first novel by an author new to Sherlockian fiction who has undertaken to unite two of the most popular Sherlockian pastiche subjects into a single volume.  The Database of Sherlockian pastiches, parodies and related fiction lists ninety five efforts to have Sherlock uncover the identity of ‘Saucy Jack.’  Further, the database also lists fifty five efforts to tell of Sherlock’s efforts to cope with Vampires.  Two of the listed items combine these themes.  A short story, “The Children of the Night,” and the current volume are the only combinations of these themes, in so far as I...