News — Roger Johnson

“Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle by Tim Symonds. Once again Holmes and Watson become entangled in a potentially devastating political conspiracy. In 1904 an invitation to address the exclusive Kipling League at a Sussex country house has unexpected consequences for them. Holmes suspects that the lecture was arranged to provide an alibi for the murder at nearby Scotney Castle, but uncovering the truth stretches his powers to the limit as the killers have learned more from him then he supposed – and the Kipling League’s schemes, like those of Baron Maupertuis, are colossal. It’s an engrossing...

“As Randall Stock notes in his foreword, a chronology is not a biography, but A Chronology of the Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, May 22nd 1859 to July 7th 1930, the magnum opus of Brian W Pugh, is more valuable than most of the published lives of Conan Doyle. The new edition adds about fifty pages, seven of them containing a chronological summary of the journal recently published as ‘Dangerous Work’: Diary of an Arctic Adventure(enthusiastically reviewed in DM 325). Here are lists of ACD’s various homes, his sporting career, the burial places of the Doyles, statues and plaques, and more, including some fascinating photographs. But...