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David Marcum In “Sherlock Holmes and the Crystal Palace Murder” the fifth novel by Johanna Rieke (of a reported six) to be published by Sherlockian publishing juggernaut MX, we explore Holmes’s Great Hiatus, following his battle with Professor Moriarty – and then what occurred after, when he returned to London.   While there are several places where the translations from German to English are a bit awkward, these can be overlooked when one is lost in the excitement and momentum of the story. There is one more Rieke novel that still hasn’t been translated into English, and I cannot wait...

David Marcum It’s hard to believe that Paul Gilbert’s first set of pastiches, “The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes”, was published all the way back in 2007. For many of us, when considering all that has happened since, that was a lifetime ago. I was fortunate to find a copy back then in two different editions – the original hardcover, and also a large-print edition. Mr. Gilbert has since gone on to write a number of Holmes short story collections, anthology contributions, and novels – but for many readers, this first collection has remained either elusive or impossible to obtain...

David Marcum Sherlock Holmes had clients and interactions from all walks of life – kings and beggars, rich and poor, and everyone in between. Among those were the literati – and from his first Holmes novel, “The Seventh Bullet” (1992), Daniel Victor has had an interest in showing these meetings. His first novel dealt with the murder of reporter David Graham Phillips, and the most recent, “The Fateful Arrow”, chronicles Holmes and Watson’s meeting with the (now little-known) American mystery writer, Anna Katherine Greene. Set in 1890, Holmes and Watson are visited by Greene, who has just witnessed a brutal...

David Marcum Margaret Walsh has written three well-received Sherlock Holmes novels, “The Molly Boy Murders”, “The Case of the Perplexed Politician”, and “The Case of the London Dock Deaths”. Along the way, she’s also been contributing a number of fine pastiches to several recent Holmes anthologies. Now, in this volume (before her next novel is ready), she has collected them – to the great appreciation of those who haven’t had the chance to previously read them, or for those who are glad to revisit them once again. The title story, “The Bloody Duck” is an excellent adventure which begins in...

I wasn’t sure what to expect with Mr. Nick Reekie’s new edition of “The Hound of the Baskervilles”. I have annotated versions of “The Hound”, and comic versions, and several very different editions that have actual physical clues tucked into the books, but this is something new and wonderful – a book that reinvigorates the original text by providing new images, and faces to go with names. What makes it even more fun is how these images are tied to past “Hound” films, particularly the 1959 version starring Peter Cushing – but it’s so much more. There are photos of...