News — Book Reviews

“Before Sherlock Holmes meets John Watson, the young detective solves crimes with a bright lady friend in this delectable ‘before Watson’ novel. In Croyle’s (The Caretaker, 2009) new series, Holmes is a loner college student at Oxford in 1874 when he’s bitten by a dog visiting the campus with its owner, Priscilla ‘Poppy’ Stamford…” Read the full review here. Pre publication copies are available from The Strand Magazine.

"This is an anthology of tales involving Holmes with conventional Nineteenth Century supernatural occurrences.   The ‘Holmes Agency’ has always stood firmly behind the motto, “Ghosts need not apply,” but any number of questionable events pop up in this collection. The lead story, a novella called “The Skull of Kohada Koheiji,” presents Holmes and Watson with ghostly happenings at a Japanese exhibition village in Knightsbridge.  The appearance of a Japanese specter in the midst of London does not promote amicable relations between the Japanese Empire and that of Great Britain. In the next novella, “The Ratcliffe Oracle,” an oracle has...

“Diane Gilbert Madsen has given readers another winner in the DD McGill Literati Mystery Series. The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper is a marvelous tale of DD McGill who is an investigator for insurance fraud and her bookseller friend, Tom Joyce, who is asked to assess the value of the literary estate of a wealthy Chicago estate owner. McGill immediately alienates herself from those associated with the estate and Tom experiences a nasty fall down a flight of stairs. Even though the police believe the fall to be an accident, McGill is convinced it was an...

"This book is based on the assumption that the final page (Billy the Page) employed at 221 Baker Street while Holmes lived there was Raymond Chandler.  Within the world of the Canon, this is a plausible assumption.  During 1903, Raymond Chandler was a day-student at Dulwich College (UK, Secondary School), near London.  After leaving Dulwich, he became a professional writer and he stayed in the UK until 1911.  since Raymond was born in Kansas, he retained American citizenship, even though his mother, who was Irish, brought him to England to live with her mother after his father deserted them. The...

"Okay, not a traditional Holmes and Watson tale. As in… No Holmes… and no Watson. This story is all about one question — given that Jack the Ripper was on the prowl at the same time that Arthur Conan Doyle was having such success with his fictional detective, what would Conan Doyle have thought (or possibly done) about this real world case? Here’s the thing — it may not be a Holmes & Watson tale, but I was totally sucked in. Madsen makes a VERY good case that Doyle probably DID get involved and may very well have even had his...