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The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews The Poisoned Penman

Posted by Steve Emecz on

"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....

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New review of The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes

Posted by Steve Emecz on

“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...

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Review of The Conan Doyle Notes: The Secret of Jack the Ripper

Posted by Steve Emecz on

"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...

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The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews The Detective the Woman and the Silent Hive

Posted by Steve Emecz on

"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...

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The Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes by John Heywood

Posted by Steve Emecz on

"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 .

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