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"There are bad pastiche writers, there are good pastiche writers and there are brilliant pastiche writers such as David Stuart Davies, June Thomson, Hugh Ashton, Mike Hogan etc. Now, we must add to the list of brilliant pastiche writers the name of John Heywood for this collection of stories is straight out of ‘1895, hansoms and gas-lit streets’. There is no filler here, each story is a gem and the author’s control of his characters and their dialogue is well nigh indistinguishable from the work of ACD. Yes, I know that kind of thing pops up in many reviews, but...

"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...

Review of A Twist of Lyme by David Ruffle "The wittiest book ever written about moving to Lyme, essential reading for all visitors and it ought to be stocked by every estate agent in the town. The insiders' guide for incomers."  Geoff Baker, The View From Lyme A Twist of Lyme is available from all good bookstores including in the USA Barnes and Noble and Amazon, in the UK Amazon and Waterstones. For other countries Book Depository offer free delivery worldwide. The book is also available in ebook format including Kindle, Kobo, Nook and iPad.

"Last year I greatly enjoyed The Amateur Executioner, the first collaboration between Dan Andriacco and Kieran McMullen. It’s a pleasure now to welcome Enoch Hale’s second case, The Poisoned Penman (MX; 15 May), which begins in 1922 with the unexpected death of Langdale Pike, poisoned while taking tea with Hale. Pike’s specialism, you’ll remember from ‘The Three Gables’, was society gossip, but he seemed to have something more important on his mind. Hale’s investigation, helped by a clever advertising copywriter named Dorothy L Sayers, brings him into contact again with TS Eliot and Winston Churchill, and introduces him to GK Chesterton, Horatio Bottomley and Rudolph Valentino....

“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...