News — Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle

“And another pastiche appears! A collection of short stories by John Heywood. Is there anything that marks this one out from the crowd. Yes! Namely, it’s brilliant. Some pastiche writers excel at dialogue, some with narrative, some with plotting. I find it quite rare to come across a writer who combines all those elements and gets each of those elements spot on. John Heywood does precisely that. I can be picky with my own work and extremely picky with other’s work, alighting on mis-spellings, confusion of tenses, anachronisms etc. I could find no examples of any of these in The...

"Here’s a new pastiche that keeps the genre of Jack the Ripper vibrant, but it’s a gentle cozy (of the slaughtered Ripper victims) with an intriguing plot in which the Chicago of Barack Obama and the contribution of local Sherlockians is promoted. It’s a Chicago of the Art Institute, Arthur Rubloff’s singular collection of paperweights, and the historical lumber barons who laid the plywood route for the Chicago Fire. It bears telling that though Conan Doyle was a keen investigator of true crimes and wrongful convictions, this one apparently escaped his instinct and his pen.  Nor did Sherlock Holmes attempt...

"Amy Thomas isn’t the first to make Irene Adler the focus of a series, but the way she develops the woman’s relationship with Sherlock Holmes is particularly appealing. As The Detective, the Woman and the Silent Hive opens, Irene brings Holmes a problem: her bees have died, and she wants to know how and why. The mystery, rooted in the detective’s past and involving far more than the silence of the bees, is presented alternately from her angle and from his.” The Detective The Woman and The Silent Hive is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In...

"John Heywood is a new name to me, and a welcome one. The seven stories in The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes (MX; 28 April;) are among the best I’v come across. Character, place and plotting ring true, and Mr Heywood is one of the few who can capture the authentic Watson style – a deceptively difficult feat.” The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes is available for pre order from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository .

"Eddy Webb’s WATSON IS NOT AN IDIOT (2013; 201 pp.) is not a rehabilitation of Watson (who doesn’t really need one any more), but rather (as it’s subtitled) "an opinionated tour of the Sherlock Holmes canon" that offers insights into the stories." Watson Is Not An Idiot is available from all good bookstores including  Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository . In ebook format it is in Amazon Kindle,  Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).