News — book review

“It is high time someone made real people of the Scotland Yard detectives, rather than mere foils to be outshone by Sherlock Holmes. Marcia Wilson accomplishes the task brilliantly in her novel You Buy Bones. Set at the beginning of the Canon, it creates backstories for Gregson, Bradstreet, and Lestrade that show them to be conscientious, caring men, faithfully performing an often thankless job despite their private troubles. Yet, the book’s lead character is not Lestrade or Holmes (who is around just long enough to set impossible deductive standards) but Dr. John H. Watson. Here is the Watson of A...

“David Ruffle’s latest takes our heroes to New York, after Holmes accepts a commission to train its police detectives in his methods.   Before long, however, he and Watson journey to Fall River, Massachusetts to reinvestigate the Borden Mur­ders, still officially unsolved five years beyond.   Complicating their task is a series of new slaughters, for it seems the notorious Lizzie has not ground her last ax.  Ruffle’s research is com­mend­able; he quotes extensively from transcripts of the famous trial and enlivens his text with contemporary photographs.  The minor characters are all well drawn (some are also interestingly named!); and...

“James Carlopio’s SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE JULY CRISIS (London: MX Publishing, 2015; 148 pp.) is a story created with an interesting approach: he has used words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs taken from the Canon to devise a new pastiche, resulting in a tale told very much in the style of Conan Doyle; some of the plot devices will be familiar, but Carlopio has succeeded in achieving what he calls “creative editing.”  The author has a web-site at <www.jamescarlopio.com>.” Sherlock Holmes and the July Crisis 2nd Edition is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and for free shipping worldwide Book...

“This novel re-imagines Dr. Watson’s marriage to the ill-fated Mary Morstan, after their daughter (also Mary) confronts her aging, absent father with her mother’s long-lost diary. Hamish Crawford creates a pair of sympathetic heroines and offers an original perspective on a period that is undoubtedly the apex of the Canon. Yet, it is difficult to know whom he considers “the best and wisest man” referred to in the title. Mrs. Hudson’s comment that Holmes and Watson ought to “have married each other” summarizes Crawford’s thesis. Hitherto one of the most consistently loyal characters in literature, here the doctor vacillates between...

“I thoroughly enjoyed all five of the stories in the ‘Tangled Skeins’. All very different but all have the same A.C.Doyle magic woven into them by the author. David Marcum captures the real feel of London and it’s populace during the period when Holmes was practicing and also beyond, when in retirement. Vivid scenes are set and he brings them to life with just sufficient detail to allow your imagination to fill in the rest. Bravo! I shall definitely be reading more of Mr Marcum’s work!” Reviewed by Dick Gillman Sherlock Holmes - Tangled Skeins is available from all good bookstores...