News — Book Reviews

"deliberately and successfully funny" The Punishment of Sherlock Holmes is an engaging collection from Philip K Jones and Bob Burr collected over decades. The Sherlock Holmes Society of London describes the book this week in their journal as: "The Punishment of Sherlock Holmes: Selected Sherlockian Puns edited by Bob Burr and Philip K Jones is a deliberately and successfully funny assemblage of what must be several hundred short and short-short shaggy dog stories about Holmes and Watson. The book is dedicated to John Bennett Shaw, who would have loved it." The book compiles short stories from several decades and from...

" It's a neatly-turned tale which will amuse fans of Holmes and the non-Holmesian alike." The Bookbag is one of the UK's largest independent book reviews sites. Their review for The Case of The Grave Accusation is out this week and overall very positive. "Much in the way that legend says that King Arthur will return when his country needs him, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have returned because an accusation has been made against their creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The charge is that the great man plagiarised The Hound of the Baskervilles from his great friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson – and then...

"This is a pleasing book, whether the reader is a casual admirer of the Sherlockian Canon or a true aficionado". The Ill Dressed Vagabond (aka Philip K Jones) is one of the world's leading Sherlock Holmes reviewers. He maintains a huge online database of stories and pastiches. Here he reviews the collection of short fiction from Gerard Kelly - The Outstanding Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. "This collection brought back a number of old friends and introduced me to a pair of new acquaintances.  Eleven of these tales were published in pamphlet format in 1999.  They have not been easy to...

Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Dr Who, The League of Gentlemen) has written the foreword to what Holmes fans are eagerly expecting to be the most important new Arthur Conan Doyle book of 2011. Author Alistair Duncan has a very hard act to follow with his new book, An Entirely New Country. His last book, The Norwood Author won the 2011 Howlett Literary Award (Sherlock Holmes book of the year) and was widely recognised as one of the most important Conan Doyle books in recent times due to the new information Duncan uncovered during his meticulous research. The challenge is that Conan...

"The characters are interesting and the story is written to be continued.  Another book is planned and if it is good as the first, I’m sure it will lead to a popular series." Philip K Jones (aka The Ill Dressed Vagabond) reviews the debut novel from Felicia Carparelli - Murder In The Library. The book has recently been picked up for translation and will come out in Italian in early 2012. Here is Phil's review: "This book is a Sherlockian mystery only by courtesy.  The characters are knowledgeable about the Canon and there are Sherlockian echoes in the clues and...