#THIF - Thank Holmes It's Friday 2022 - Week 19
Posted by Steve Emecz on
Week 19 - Thank Holmes It's Friday 2022
Now on Kickstarter 'Sherlock Holmes: The Cherry Tree and the Comma'
This weeks news:
1. Free Audiobooks
2. Audio App
3. New Books
1. Free Audiobooks
This week we are offering a choice of up to three free books - the first a brand new release from Bill Lawler.
Please remember to post a rating of the book and a short review if possible.
Please use the contact us form, quote #THIF 127 and let us know which country you are from and tell us which of the books you would like.
The year is 1905, and residents along the southern coast of England are experiencing a series of tragic events which threaten to destroy the peaceful city of Torquay. That lovely coastal community hard by the English Channel is now having to deal with a series of brutal crimes, the likes of which it has never seen before.
All of its citizens are now living in constant fear. Events which have occurred over several months have taken their toll on the collective community psyche. Businesses have suffered since people are afraid to walk the streets. Worried parents won't let their children go out unattended, fearing for their safety. What once was a happy, contented resort area is now a virtual ghost town with much less day-to-day interaction between its citizens.
Murder can do that to a community! It is into this dangerous environment that Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson have come, summoned by one of the area's civic leaders who has problems of his own. While there, they meet a rather unique personality who cannot keep out of their way as they apply their skills to restore order to the pleasant little town....
The Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1
An eclectic mix of eight stories drawn from the annals of the MX Series of New Sherlock Holmes stories and the many Holmes anthologies of Belanger Books, all from the pen of emerging pastiche author Stephen Herczeg.
Holmes is presented with a dishevelled and confused man that appears to be from another century. Time travel, or something more mysterious?Several years after the mystery of the Engineer’s thumb, Victor Hatherley is again at odds. Will Holmes discover his whereabouts and save him? And what is the connection to Holmes’ greatest foe of all?
Death from the venomous bite of a rare Gila Monster. An accident or is the innocent looking herpetologist not what he seems? A bomb appears beneath the floor of Parliament, along with a threat from Sudanese terrorists. Will Holmes make sense of the warning and identify the culprit?
Holmes must solve the mystery of a dead body found in an alleyway in a retrofuture of steam power.Bodies appear to leave the morgue of their own accord. A mysterious fire draws Holmes to one conclusion. Zombies. On the night of her arranged engagement to a German industrialist, a young woman disappears. A derailed train, and a dead professor sees Holmes befriend an adventurous young woman to solve the mystery and foil the robbery of a priceless relic.
Sherlock Holmes: A Yorkshireman in Baker Street
Sherlock Holmes is a Yorkshireman, born and brought up on the North York Moors, but he spent much of his life at 221B Baker Street in London. He is more than a character from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's imagination. For many thousands of followers, he still lives in their minds through films, television, stage and radio plays, and written stories. Ever since Holmes first appeared in print, people have used the stories, together with knowledge of the culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to speculate about his life. They wanted more than the 60 stories in the Canon. This speculation is known as The Game, and has included the writing of pastiches, tales which his friend Doctor Watson, and others, might have written, but never quite got around to publishing. Until now.
Born and brought up in Leeds, Robert Stapleton is now retired and lives with his wife in North Yorkshire. In early 2015, David Marcum invited him to send him a story he had written, to be included in a new book of Sherlock Holmes stories, to be published by Steve Emecz, in support of the Stepping Stones school project. Over the following few years, he has written further pastiches, including some published by Derrick and Brian Belanger. A selection from all of these publications has been included in this collection.
"Come, Watson, come"! cries Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, "The game is afoot".
All our print books are on our site and you can see all our audiobooks through this audible link...(MX Audio on Audible).
2. Audio App
The MX Audio Collection continues to grow and confirmed interviews with Lee Child, Nicholas Meyer, Nancy Springer, Bonnie MacBird and Scott and Burt from IHOSE. Read more here... (MX App)
3. New Books
As many of you will know, one of the benefits of subscribing to our newsletter is to know about, and get access to, new Sherlock Holmes books months ahead of the public. Here are some great new books you can grab now whilst others wait.....
Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Illustrations - Volume 2 (20th March)
Fans loved Mike's first collection of illustrations, even though the first book was dominated by Sidney Paget. The second volume is even larger at 456 pages and over 400 images. The books are very large casebound hardcovers.
The Undiscovered Archives of Sherlock Holmes (24th March)
The author of these “history mysteries” is John Lawrence, a University of California-trained history Ph.D. who spent nearly 40 years as a top staff person in the U.S. House of Representatives, the last 8 as chief of staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The author uses his professional training to blend historical fact with Holmesian embellishments that produce unique stories any devotee of The Canon will enjoy. These are all traditional-style pastiches published in various anthologies from 2015 – 2020, including the MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.
Sherlock Cat and The Missing Mousie (31st March)
We've been itching to make this gorgeous book available and here it finally is. Written and illustrated by friends Heather and Amanda this is a brilliant book for young children. It's also featuring in a Kickstarter this week.... (click here)
“From now on, I am going to be Sherlock Holmes, the World’s Greatest Cat Detective.” With those words, my friend Spot decided he would become a crime-solving kitty.
“And you, of course,” he said dramatically. “Will be my faithful friend, Dr. John Watson. The one who writes down all of my adventures and shares them with the world! We’ll be famous! Everyone will know the name ‘Sherlock Holmes, The World’s Greatest Cat Detective!’”
“Mm hmm,” I agreed. I wasn’t too worried. I was sure that, by morning, Spot would have forgotten all about becoming Sherlock Holmes. Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.
The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes (7th April)
The Uncollected Cases of Sherlock Holmes presents eight new stories about Holmes which set the great detective against the background of Victorian England, an era of enormous progress, in science, transport, and medicine but which also witnessed a surge in urban poverty, prostitution and imperial adventurism. Each of the stories in this collection engages with an aspect of this background. In ‘The Sicilian Defence’, Holmes comes to the aid of a disgraced army veteran who has fallen in love with a Sudanese woman and incurred the wrath of her father, whilst in ‘The Archaeopterx’ Holmes has to recover an important fossil which has been stolen from the Natural History Museum. In ‘The Missing Heir’ Holmes is asked to find the heir to a great fortune, considered by his family to be mentally unstable, and in ‘The Dunwich Ghost’ he investigates the plight of an old army colleague of Watson’s who is haunted by the ghost of his dead wife.
The Holmes who emerges from these stories justifies the description of him by Watson as the ‘best and wisest of men.’ Whether investigating a gang of forgers, securing justice for a murdered prostitute or facing a Russian spy we see his ferocious intelligence alongside a strong humanitarian bias. Despite his idiosyncracies, his solitary temperament, his melancholia and addiction to cocaine, he is both a man of his time and a man for our time.
The author of this volume is Geoffrey Finch, an Associate Lecturer in English Language at the Open University. Geoffrey has taught at Universities in Africa, New Zealand and the UK. He lives in Greater London with his wife and their cat, Humphrey, who makes a guest appearance in the fifth story, ‘The Cathedral Cat’.
New Cases of Sherlock Holmes (14th April)
An unidentified woman is found dead with a set of false teeth mysteriously gripped in her hand. A young tutor finds himself accused of a bizarre art theft. A Russian refugee in hiding is helped by Watson’s wife Mary, and now Mary has disappeared.
In these ten stories, Shaw reveals to us a mercurial and complex Holmes, a conflicted Watson, and a relationship between the two that is nuanced and psychologically rich. Here is a Sherlock Holmes you will welcome: true to form yet renewed; by turns infuriating and charming.
Shaw suggests issues that resonate with a contemporary reader while deftly avoiding piety. In this debut collection, you will discover wry humour, Victorian pathos and of course, hansom cabs in a London fog.
The Additional Investigations of Sherlock Holmes (21st April)
One look at Arthur Hall's profile on this site (click here) and you'll see that Arthur Hall is one of the most prolific Holmes writers of the last decade with six novels (a seventh coming soon) and several short story collections. This book contains seven more of his short stories.
The Redacted Sherlock Holmes Volume VII
Two kings, a model, a traitor, two wombats, two poets, an accountant, more lobbyists than you can count, three titans of business, two artists, a pawnbroker…and Sherlock Holmes.
Orlando Pearson presents them all in the latest addition to the acclaimed Redacted Sherlock Holmes series.
- The Poet and his Muse – a life-changing discovery in Highgate Cemetery;
- A Study in Black and Orange – the race to find a missing royal artefact;
- The Cherry-Tree and the Comma – poetry, treason, and blackmail;
- M Harris Smith – the woman with whom Holmes had a professional association; and
- A Story with a Health-Warning – death, spirits, and taxes.
An irresistible blend of Holmestry and history.
Mrs. Hudson and The Wild West (15th May)
When Buffalo Bill Cody's horse is stolen, the star of the world's foremost wild west show travels to Baker Street to consult the star of the world's foremost consulting detective agency. Like the many before him, Colonel Cody takes Sherlock Holmes to be that star. The true sage of 221B Baker Street, who also serves as its landlady, takes control of the situation, and finds both the purloined animal and the two children who had taken the horse for a joy ride 1903 style. When their father is murdered weeks later, the children fear they will be blamed because of their quarrel with him. They run away to join the wild west show leading Colonel Cody to make a return visit to Baker Street—this time with the two children in tow, and to enlist Holmes in the search for a murderer.
Mrs. Hudson, will, of course, once again take charge, once again without acknowledgement of her contribution, once again maintaining the fiction of Sherlock Holmes's leadership, an essential pretense in the male dominated world of Victorian England. As Mrs. Hudson and her colleagues work to discover the murderer, they will find themselves having to counter an anti-Indian bigotry that places at risk the marriage of friends of Mrs. Hudson's from the wild west show, and Mrs. Hudson's very life. With the help of her two young horse thieves, now happily rehabilitated, Mrs. Hudson may yet find the way to a just and rewarding outcome.
An Irregular Life (19th May)
“And now comes a man who thinks like, looks like, talks like and is as close to the real Conan Doyle as possible. He is Mark McPherson.” John Bennett Shaw
But on his own account, since childhood Mark McPherson's interest in the worlds of Arthur Conan Doyle and his Great Detective have become a realized dimension of his life. A professed student of the mysterious and arcane who turned his love toward investigation, he would eventually create the DAEDALOS Investigative Agency and address a host of the world's greatest literary, historical, paranormal, and criminal enigmas. Called "a real life Sherlock Holmes" and "Michigan's Indiana Jones,"
McPherson's explorations have involved the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster, the probing of sacred sites of Egypt's Giza Plateau and a methodical pursuit of the Shakespeare Authorship Mystery. He has also examined the enigma of the Shroud of Turin, conducted The Final Houdini Séance and sponsored an underwater hunt for Atlantis and numerous archaeological expeditions in Britain in quest of the mytho-historical Arthurian legends. Reflecting his enduring interest in the subject of Sherlock Holmes, Mark McPherson sought and found the Dartmoor location of the "true Baskerville Hall" in conjunction with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and in 1979 consulted with Scotland Yard in the unparalleled manhunt for the "Yorkshire Ripper." He was the first to present a commemorative plaque at the legendary site of "221B, Baker Street" in London in 1978. Nine years later he would confer with his friends Dame Jean Conan Doyle and Richard Lancelyn Green to create a dramatic "Evening With Sir Arthur Conan Doyle," followed by a decade-long series of critically acclaimed performances throughout America, Britain and Canada.
As a popular lecturer, journalist, author, actor, playwright, film-maker and historical detective, Mark McPherson's personal adventures have garnered him many distinctions, not the least of them being his honorific investiture as "Cecil Barker" for the Baker Street Irregulars. A member of the Amateur Mendicants and Old Soldiers of Baker Street, he was founder of the Napoleons of Crime of Detroit. He has also received numerous accolades from the Arthur Conan Doyle Society and a host of international scion organizations. Currently residing at "Gray Gables," a 169-year-old riverfront manse on the island of Grosse Ile, Michigan, Mark McPherson currently shares his reputedly haunted residence with his wife Dori and his ever-faithful "canine Watson," Bradbury. By his own Profession, An Irregular Life is "the first and last of my memoirs."
The Death of Sherlock Holmes (29th May)
The previous diaries of Arthur Conan Doyle tell of the shadowy real life Sherlock Holmes, a medical school dropout. While in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Bell, a brilliant Edinburgh surgeon, Holmes learned anatomy, surgery, observation and deduction. These skills and his ability to solve crimes led to his recruitment by the British secret service. In this the last of three diaries, Doyle recounts a series of murders and the pursuit of a sinister Russian assassin from Edinburgh to the Yosemite Valley in California. When the case, involving a California millionaire and Chinese tongs becomes desperate, the British secret service sent Sherlock Holmes. The case ended in his death but the great detective lives on in the novels by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Experience Club: The Rediscovered Cases of Sherlock Holmes Book 7 (5th June)
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are visited by Mr Josiah Endicott, an injured enquiry agent who believes that three recent murders are connected.
He explains that he was attacked shortly after interviewing a friend of one of the victims and warned to discontinue his investigation. A remark of one of his assailants appeared to confirm that the murders were committed with a common motive and, as his client is clearly unable to proceed, Holmes agrees to assume the case.
Sherlock Holmes and The Crystal Palace Murder (12th June)
Why Meiringen?
Sherlock Holmes readers have always asked, why did Holmes go to Meiringen? And did Moriarty follow him there? And if Holmes did not die in the Falls, what happened next? The familiar stories tell us little. For the first time this book gives us the answers we always wanted. Johanna Rieke’s careful and detailed research, and understanding of the region, show what really happened, and how Holmes escaped, to reappear three years later in London. If Moriarty is now dead, however, his evil work goes on. In London, Holmes and Watson, drawn into an apparently meaningless murder in the Crystal Palace in South London, , soon recognise that much more is at stake. How are a greengrocer’s shop, a dockyard pub in East London, a tattooed seaman and a mysterious German all involved, and who is Moriarty’s shadowy successor? Only Holmes and Watson, in a desperate search and by sharp deduction, can hope, at the last moment, to foil a disaster. Can they prevent many innocent deaths, and protect Britain’s standing in the world? Even as the story ends, they know that their fight against evil will go on, and that Moriarty’s successors are always alert, a constant threat. As this exciting book makes clear, Holmes’ task never ends.
The fifth novel to be translated from the original German from Johanna Rieke.
The Lost World Re-Imagined (16th June)
THE LOST WORLD RE-IMAGINED: In this volume, the original and unabridged text of The Lost World is accompanied by sixty-five charming colour photographic illustrations featuring custom designed models built using only LEGO® brand minifigures and bricks. This uniquely illustrated edition is sure to delight LEGO enthusiasts, as well as fans of the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, children and adults alike. Part of the Re-Imagined Series which includes over a dozen Sherlock Holmes adventures.
The Adventure of the Bloody Duck and other tales of Sherlock Holmes - (19th June)
"I had seen many strange things in my time living in 221B Baker Street with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, but an elderly man standing in the middle of our living room holding a blood-stained duck was most certainly one of the oddest of my experiences." Join Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as they solve six cases involving stolen jewels, political intrigue, dreadful murders...and a duck!
Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Jeweled Falcon and Other Stories (26th June)
In "The Adventure of the Jeweled Falcon", Holmes tracks down an ancient priceless statue, but others are looking for it, too - and a host of other stories too.
Sherlock Holmes and The Sixty Steps (8th Sept)
Séamas Duffy’s fourth novel, “Sherlock Holmes and the Sixty Steps” follows a similar format to his previously published Holmes collections: a novella together with some shorter stories. The four stories are: “The Tragedy of Langhorne Wyke” (1890); “The Mystery of the Thirteen Bells” (1895); “The Adventure of the Sixty Steps” (1897); “The Problem of the Coptic Patriarchs” (1898).
Sherlock Holmes: The Persian Slipper and Other Stories (26th Sept)
Did you ever wonder where Sherlock Holmes found the Persian slipper he keeps his shag tobacco in? Had Holmes and Watson ever met before that day at St. Barts? Did Holmes really believe in curses when he said he did?
Dr. John Watson reveals the answers to these questions in The Persian Slipper and Other Stories along with cases involving the putative Naval Man, a night spent at a gentlemen’s club, Holmes’ second marriage proposal, a movable tree, and a surprising wedding ending.
Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Fateful Arrow (17th Oct)
One moment the lovely young woman was walking through the Battle of Hastings exhibition at the British Museum; the next, she lay dead on the checkered museum floor, a Norman arrow protruding from her breast. Inspector Lestrade believed he had solved the mystery, but almost immediately recognized that Scotland Yard needed the help of Sherlock Holmes. From London to the Lake District, the master detective, along with his colleague Dr. Watson and recently-met American mystery writer, Anna Katharine Green, follows a string of clues that ultimately exposes the intricacies of a tragic love story-a woeful tale whose twists and turns reveal what Watson accurately called "the unhappiest of Holmes's adventures."
The Hound of The Baskervilles - A Sherlock Holmes Reader (1st Nov)
This unique volume is aimed at the new generation of Sherlockians from nine to ninety-nine. It contains Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original novel, complimented by a fun and fact filled educational supplement which consists of; a who’s who, location lists, writing tasks, research exercises, a crossword puzzle, histories of Queen Victoria, Victorian childhood, transport and travel, Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police Force, a guide to Sherlock Holmes’ London, a history of Sherlock Holmes on the stage, screen, and radio, an original audio play for four aspiring young actors, colourful characters from the Sherlock Holmes’ canon, the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a Victorian timeline. Many of the above come with an abundance of question and answer tasks.
