News — philip k jones

"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...

"This book is a collection of articles on Sherlockian matters by a true Sherlockian scholar.  It includes a variety of subjects and formats and is liberally spiced with the unobtrusive dry humor that is typical of Professor Alvarez.  The only consistent theme in this book is that of scholarship.  Professor Alvarez documents everything.  Because of that attention to detail, readers may take him a bit seriously and think they are reading class presentations or detailed redactions of dusty volumes from the back of the Library stacks.  Don’t make that mistake.  These are intensely personal observations by a Sherlockian with a...

"This is the third novel by this author about Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler.  As these novels come out, readers find themselves travelling a strange pathway.  Both Sherlock and Irene have developed defenses against caring about others.  Their reasons are different, but their actions are similar.  Both are self-reliant loners who suppress their feelings of care and concern for others lest they be trapped into allowing others to distract them from their own immediate concerns. This novel opens with Irene arriving at 221B Baker Street to inform Sherlock that her bee hives have all died.  At this time, Irene is...

"This book is a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories set in the 21st Century.  They include agents and Rock Stars, cell phones and E-Books and take place in a thoroughly modern world.  They are not written in the style used by Doyle, so this Dr. Watson is not the Watson of the 19th Century.  Instead, Watson is married and is working for a law firm that specializes in “no win, no fee” cases of insurance fraud (Watson’s words). The short story, “Charlie Milverton,” is the only one that was published earlier as it appeared in Sherlock’s Home (Steve Emecz, ed.)  Just as “The Adventure...

"This is the third in the author’s series featuring Jefferson Cody and Sebastian McCabe.   To my taste it seems the best in the series of four.  Events center around the wedding of Jeff Cody and Lynda Teal.  As is customary, we meet again with old acquaintances and run into a group of new ones.  This time we learn more about old friends and meet even more interesting new ones than is usual. Although the upcoming wedding permeates the entire book, this is because the narrator is the groom.  He is, quite naturally, preoccupied with his bride-to-be and is only marginally...