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Help needed! Noted Sherlock Holmes author, David Ruffle would like some views, whatever they may be, on the subject of the ‘Lizzie Borden murders’ to be published in a new Holmes adventure where he is asked to look into the case. Please feel free to email me on lymelight53@aol.com. Thank you.

The Conan Doyle Notes is shortlisted for Best Suspense novel in the LOVEY Awards BEST SUSPENSE Black Stiletto: Secrets and Lies / Raymond Benson Once Upon a Crime / Evelyn Cullet The Conan Doyle Notes / Diane Gilbert Madsen Titania’s Suitor / C.L. Shore The House on the Dunes / Nancy Sweetland Murder Across the Ocean / Charlene Wexler Winners will be announced at the Love Is Murder Conference in Chicago on February 7th. The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper paperback edition is available from all good bookstores including   Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK, and...

"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...

"Sherlock Holmes: The Scottish Question, or Sons of the Thistle by Mike Hogan  seems singularly appropriate to the year of the Scottish referendum, as it starts with the reported theft of the Coronation Stone from Westminster Abbey (but is it the real Stone of Destiny?), leading Holmes to uncover a plot by Scottish nationalists to destroy the Union. In the shadows, behind the plot, is a foreign power, whose aim goes beyond the dismantling of the United Kingdom. Terrorism, espionage, danger and hair’s-breadth escapes make The Scottish Question apolitical thriller rather than a detective story – and why not? There’s...