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As a retired detective with the Metropolitan Police Keiron Freeburn has excellent experience which he has used to great effect with a very unusual take on The Hound of The Baskervilles. As with several reviews of this fascinating book the societies have been tough on the small mistakes, but another resounding thumbs up for a very unusual and memorable Holmes pastiche. "What we have here, apparently, are facsimiles of the original case files from both Scotland Yard and Devon County Constabulary. In fact this collection of witness statements, medical reports, and police reports is the work of a former member...

'The Sign of Fear' is the first in a series of Holmes pastiche novels from Molly Carr, a life long Dr. Watson expert. It features Mrs. Watson as a strong female lead character andthe book has gained very posititive reviews from Holme societies around the world. Here, Roger Johnson from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London reviews the book for their newsletter;   "Never mind what you’ve been told: the former Mary Morstan is a woman with a past — so perhaps it’s natural that she should come within the orbit of the Napoleon of Crime. At least we can...

The answer is 25th December if you are online – 24th if you are a physical shop. That’s not a typo, if you are a bookseller or publisher then the online appetite from consumers won’t stop when the tills in the shops close on Christmas Eve. Shopping on Christmas Day is a relatively new phenomenon. In 2008 as in years before, shopping online started to slow down around the 16th December and stopped almost altogether on the 19th. In 2009 we passed a significant point in our shopping cultural evolution. Some time during 2009 shopping online became a daily activity...

Whenever a new form of recycling is heralded as a contribution to the life of the planet and a reduction in the carbon footprint, there spring up a host of 'nay-sayers' that highlight the problems with it. None more so than garden composting or recycling. It's been described as 'a dangerous folly of the middle classes' and some other even less kinder descriptions that focus on the dangers of not doing it correctly, when in reality it can be a very productive and useful tool for the avid gardener. Leading agro-scientist Bill Butterworth explains the 'why' of composting: "There is...

The time that Arthur Conan Doyle spent in Devon was critical. It was only when he wrote 'The Hound of The Baskervilles' did Sherlock Holmes become a worldwide phenomenon. It was there, on Dartmoor that Conan Doyle got the inspiration for what was to become the most famous, and most important, crime fiction mystery of all time. Two leading Holmes historians Paul R. Spiring and Brian W. Pugh have teamed up with a Devonian historian Sandru Bhanji to create the definitive guide to Sherlock Holmes and Devon. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and Devon: A Complete Tour Guide & Companion (MX Publishing,15th June) contains detailed descriptions, background and even GPS co-ordinates for thirty key Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle sites across Devon.