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“This author is new to Sherlockian fiction, with his only previous book a history of U-Boat warfare in the Gulf of Mexico.  For a first effort at Sherlockian fiction, or any fiction, for that matter, this book is remarkable.  The events recounted take place in the 1980s and the story is hard to define.  It is a mystery and a horror story and a romance, all combined.  It has supernatural elements if one chooses to read it that way, yet it is also intimately involved in psychology and, of all things, Theology.  Perhaps I can explain my viewpoint best by...

“The title of The 1895 Murder by Dan Andriacco (MX Publishing, www.mxpublishing.co.uk; £9.99/$16.95/€12.99) refers neatly to a play based on ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans’, written by Professor Sebastian McCabe of St Benignus College, Erin, Ohio. As he proved in No Police Like Holmes and Holmes Sweet Holmes, Mac is a devoted Sherlockian and a highly skilled detective, so when a man is shot dead outside the theatre where he’s playing Mycroft Holmes, he and his brother-in-law Jeff Cody are pleased to help find the killer. Well, mostly. Jeff‘s mind, naturally, is on his impending wedding and the need for diplomacy with...

Samuel Williams was a proud winner at the 2012 Southern California Book Festival this month. His Sherlock Holmes novel - Anomalous - received the ‘Honorable Mention’ award in the hotly contested General Fiction category. Anomalous – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is available from bookstores including in the USA Barnes and Noble and Amazon, in the UK Waterstones, Amazon and Book Depository (free worldwide delivery) and in electronic formats – iTunes (iPad), Kindle, Nook and Kobo.

“The literary archaeologists at Madame Eulalie have unearthed yet another rare Wodehouse tidbit from the distant past – a set of four playlets of political satire in pantomime form, jointly credited to Sir Plum and one Bertram Fletcher Robinson. The first, “A Fiscal Pantomime – The Sleeping Beauty” was published in the London Daily Express on Christmas Day 1903; the next was “Our Christmas Pantomime – Little Red Riding Hood; or, The Virtuous British Public and the Smart Set Wolf” which appeared inVanity Fair on December 8, 1904; “A Winter’s Tale – King Arthur and His Court” from Vanity Fair, December 14, 1905, and finally “The Progressives Progress – Some...

“Very few writers have tried to imagine what sort of things Holmes got up to, and what sort of people he met during his years living as the disaffected Irish-American, Altamont. He began his ‘pilgrimage’ in Chicago, so it’s natural that he would run into Diamond Jim Colosimo’s criminal organisation and encounter one of its youngest members, Al Capone. Natural too that he would visit the Café de Champion on West 31st Street, to meet its famous owner, Jack Johnson, the first black world heavyweight champion. The great boxer is actually the central character in a powerful novel, Anomalous: The...